A behind the scenes look into what successful treatment looks like for urinary leakage.

Urinary leakage is extremely common and has been quotes to occur in as many as 50% of women. As pelvic floor physical therapists, one of the top questions we get asked is “how to stop female urine leakage”?

Female urine leakage is often more complex than one would imagine. The first part of understanding female urine leakage is understanding how your body prevents you from leaking in the first place.

At the bottom of your pelvis sit your pelvic floor muscles. Every person (regardless of age and gender) has pelvic floor muscles. These muscles quite literally are the floor of the pelvis and help keep your urine, stool and abdominal contents in. The pelvic floor muscles sit in line with the external genitalia and are comprised of everything that people would think of as “in between the legs”.

When the pelvic floor muscles contract, they help keep urine in. When the pelvic floor muscles relax, they help you pee.

In females with urine leakage, there is often a problem with the ability of the pelvic floor muscles to contract, thereby allowing urine to escape when it shouldn’t.

How can you tell if the pelvic floor muscles are weak?

When you are sitting on the toilet, and begin urinating, try to stop the flow of urine. If you are unable to completely stop the flow of urine within 2-3 seconds, it is likely that your pelvic floor muscles are weak.

So how do we stop female urine leakage?

Often times, stopping female urine leakage involves a thorough assessment of the pelvic floor muscles so that we can figure out how weak they actually are, BUT ALSO understanding WHY they are weak.

Female urine leakage is complex. There are many reasons that the pelvic floor muscles may be in a weakened state. This can be because of a nerve injury, tension in other muscles, age related changes, hormonal changes, and other changes.

Therefore, treatment of pelvic floor muscle weakness, and thus female urine leakage, will change depending on what is causing the weakness in the first place.

Seeing a pelvic floor physical therapist that specializes in female urine leakage is key to successful treatment. Through treatment, your therapist will help you strengthen your pelvic floor muscles to help reverse urine leakage.

Research shows that one on one physical therapy sessions that take place 1 time a week for 12 weeks can be extremely beneficial in females with urine leakage. To gain a better understanding of what treatment for female urine leakage looks like, call us now!