Behold the Badder!

Breaking Bad Bladder Habits
Did you know that you might be teaching your bladder some bad habits? Habits that can gradually result in incontinence or frequent bathroom breaks? For example, if you routinely urinate before your bladder is full, it learns to signal the need to go when less volume is present. That can set up a vicious cycle. You respond to the new urges and teach your bladder to cry "run" when less and less urine is present.

Bladder training is a program of urinating on schedule. It is a mainstay of treatment for urinary frequency and urge incontinence in both women and men, alone or in conjunction with medications or other techniques. It’s something you can try on your own or with the guidance and support of a health professional.

Luckily, old bladders can learn new tricks. With bladder retraining, you gradually increase the amount of urine you can comfortably hold. Because bladder training is low cost and low risk, your healthcare clinician may encourage you to try it first, even before specific diagnostic tests are performed.
Bladder Training
Here’s a step-by-step bladder-training technique:
Keep track. For a day or two, keep track of the times you urinate or leak urine during the day.

Calculate. On average, how many hours do you wait between urinations during the day?

Choose an interval. Based on your typical interval between urinations, select a starting interval for training that is 15 minutes longer. If your typical interval is 1 hour, make your starting interval 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Hold back. When you start training, empty your bladder first thing in the morning and not again until the interval you’ve set. If the time arrives before you feel the urge, go anyway. If the urge hits first, remind yourself that your bladder isn’t really full, and use whatever techniques you can to delay going. Try the pelvic floor exercises sometimes called Kegels (see Pelvic Floor Exercises), or simply try to wait another 5 minutes before walking slowly to the bathroom.

Increase your interval. Once you are comfortable with your set interval, increase it by 15 minutes. Over several weeks or months, you may find you are able to wait 3 hours and that you experience far fewer feelings of urgency or episodes of urge incontinence.
Fluid Management
Do you have a drinking problem? Not just alcohol, but water, soda, coffee, tea, or juice? For some people, eliminating excess fluid intake is all it takes to bring incontinence under control. Or you can use the following fluid-management technique along with your bladder-training program or other treatments.

Review your bladder diary (see Keeping a Bladder Diary) to see how much fluid you’re drinking each day. Once your physician reviews this information, he or she may suggest changes in the amount of fluid you consume. If your urine output is much higher than 40 ounces, you may be drinking too much fluid. This isn’t necessarily unhealthy, but it forces your bladder to handle more urine and may invite or aggravate incontinence. Cutting back may be helpful.

On the other hand, if your output is much lower than 30–40 ounces, it can increase your risk for urinary tract infection and, in some people, create a frequent urge to urinate because the concentrated urine irritates the bladder lining. Unless you engage in strenuous exercise or have a medical condition (such as a propensity toward forming kidney stones) that requires more fluid consumption, you can try these guidelines to improve your symptoms:
Aim for no more than 6–8 cups of fluid (from all sources) each day (see How Much Should You Drink?).

Don’t drink more than 8 ounces at a time.
Don’t guzzle. The faster your bladder fills, the more likely you are to feel urgency.
Minimize caffeinated and carbonated drinks.
Decrease or eliminate alcohol consumption.
If you are thirsty because it is hot or you have exercised, don’t hesitate to drink water.

This was an AWESOME artical I read on www.WomensHealth.com and I thought I would share it. This is truly a serious subject. I had the worst bladder infect three weeks ago and as women we take things like this too lightly.

In Peace and Struggle.
CRay