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03 443 7271 | 65 Minaret Ridge, Peninsula Bay,
Wanaka
| 15/5 Hawthorne Drive, Frankton Queenstown Free consult

No more wet pants!

Stress incontinence may occur when you wet your pants during a cough, sneeze, laugh, jump on a trampoline, run or lift.  With effort or certain activities, the pressure on your bladder from above can cause leaking of urine. This is can be due to a number of things, including the position of the bladder and weakness to the pelvic floor muscles.

Urge incontinence occurs when there is a sudden and strong urge to pass urine, making you have to rush for the toilet and not always making it. The bladder contracts when you are not on the toilet, which can lead wetting the pants.   Some women go to the toilet more frequently during the day and night due to this problem.

Urgency may occur with certain triggers such as putting a key in the door or running water. There are many contributing factors to this problem such as the drinking of bladder irritants such as coffee, tea, or fizzy; bladder habits; bowel problems; and muscle overactivity. This problem can be effectively treated with behavioural and bladder retraining, education and optimising the pelvic floor muscles. Sometimes we need to use more advanced technology to resolve this problem completely.

Conditions we treat

This is when you wet your pants when you cough, sneeze, laugh, jump on a trampoline, run or lift.  Sometimes this happens with impact sport, such as running, or skipping.  It is never normal to leak when coughing or sneezing, although it is very common.  Do not put up with it!

This includes leaking urine with coughing, sneezing, laughing, or lifting.  Additionally to this, you might experience some urgency, when you have to rush off to the toilet, but don’t always make it in time and have leaking of the bladder.  They are two different problems, with different causes, which require two different treatment approaches.

Annoyingly woken up by the bladder in the night time to go for a pee.  We have to understand the reason for this, before we can improve this problem.  We may request you do perform a bladder diary to help understand the behaviour of the bladder and contributing factors.

This can be like rushing to the loo because you have a massive urge to go pee, and sometimes leaking if you don’t quite get there on time. Sometimes this can cause you to have to frequently rush to the bathroom more often than you would like.   Sometimes this can happy when you drive up the driveway, put the key in the door, hear running water, or see the toilet.  Your bladder might seem to be the boss of you!

Leaking urine when you can’t feel it coming out at all, you might find yourself a bit damp, but there is no real reason for it.

Our services related to urinary Incontinence

Pelvic floor muscles strengthening

Getting these muscles optimised to their full potential is what we are best at! This is our jam! No flimpsy pamphlet and generic instruction given… we assess you fully, and get your started on how to get these wonderful muscles, power house strong, and able to respond to what you will throw at it. Your program will be individualised to EXACTLY what you need. We don’t want your pelvic floor muscles to be your weakest link! Sometimes that might involve pelvic floor muscles relaxation first, before we can work on the strength, power, co-ordination and endurance of these muscles. They have to be fast enough to catch those coughs and sneezes, and have enough endurance to last a full day on your feet! They have to have enough tone to support your pelvic organs, and be able to fully relax to wee, poo and have sex! They need to be able to respond to impact during a lift or a jump…. And if you follow our recommendations… who knows…. Maybe you just might be able to shoot that ping pong ball across the room!  We will even help you with tips and trick on how to fit these exercises into your day, so that you can keep up the great work life long.

Bladder retraining

The volume of urine passed each time by a normal adult will vary from around 250 – 400mls or about 2 cups. Most people with normal bladder habits can hold on for 3-4 hours between toilet trips. Most younger adults can go through the night without voiding (passing urine / peeing)
Bladder retraining is for people who suffer from an urgent need to pass small amounts of urine more frequently than normal and may experience leakage with urgency.
The aim is to improve bladder control and increase the amount of urinary the bladder can comfortably hold without urgency / frequency or leakage of urine. We help to retrain the way you respond to the urgent desire to pass, and teach you how to suppress the urge until it is convenient to pass.
We may request a bladder diary to record the your fluid intake and your urine output. We will request you to document the bladder sensation you feel when you need to go to the bathroom, and any episodes of urinary leakage.

Postural assessment

One of the first things we do in our assessments is look at how your posture is faring. Why? Our bodies and posture go through huge transformation throughout pregnancy and childbirth. All of your muscles and ligaments, which have softened and stretched to accommodate your bub, usually take some months post delivery to recover. Tummy muscles can also separate and the connective tissue through the midline can become stretched, causing diastasis rectus abdominus.

When the pelvis is tilted forward or back (think ‘butt tucking’ or ‘butt sticking out’ J-Lo style!) then the alignment with our spine, pelvis and rib-cage is compromised. This can throw everything out of whack, causing pain, breathing problems.

All of this lengthening and weakening of our abdominal muscles can affect the control of our pelvic floor, spine and pelvis and depending on the level of trauma during birth, there can be varying degrees of perineal (pelvic floor) pain. This weakening or pain can happen whether you had a vaginal or C-section, both affects posture.

Pessary fitting

A pessary is a flexible silicone device that goes inside the vagina and can help improve the anatomical position of the pelvic organs, and relieve prolapse symptoms such as vaginal bulge, heaviness or difficulty emptying the bladder or bowel. They can be worn all the time, or you can choose to wear them just when you need them, like in impact sport. Pessaries can also be used to improve urinary incontinence, as a rehabilitation tool for feedback of downward pressure into the pelvis during exercise and to facilitate pelvic floor strengthening.

No two vaginas are shaped the same, so there are a number of different pessary design options that may be of benefit, depending on your anatomy and type of prolapse.  All of our clients are taught how to insert, remove and self manage their pessary during a fitting. We work in collaboration with doctors to make sure that a pessary is safe and able to be used for each client.

Book an appointment

Take the first step and book your appointment 60 minute appointment, which is always 1:1, and involves a treatment tailored to you exact needs.

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Wondering if we can help? Give our trained staff a call!
We can answer your detailed questions, and if we're not a great fit for you, we can provide resources and recommendations for treatment options.

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