Do you know what you can do in your everyday life to decrease the impact of urinary incontinence? You don’t need to alter your life to create meaningful changes. Lifestyle updates, scheduling bathroom breaks, and selecting the right products for you will all help you on your incontinence journey. Learn more from Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz in episode two of Real Talk.
Real Talk Episode 2: Top tips for managing incontinence
Transcript of Real Talk Episode 2
What are some things that you can do right now to help take care of yourself and decrease the impact of urinary incontinence in your everyday life?
First of all, lifestyle, basic lifestyle stuff. Make sure you're set up for comfort and success, especially if you're working at home right now.
Make sure you are building in breaks to move your body around, to hydrate properly, to eat good things that are healthy for you, and to schedule those bathroom breaks, right?
So you don't want to go to the bathroom every single time you possibly can because you're going to train your bladder to feel anything and say, “We’ve got to go, we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go.” And nobody wants to feel that way. That's super uncomfortable and it's actually not going to benefit you. So schedule those breaks.
I tell my patients who are struggling with this to try to get to an hour and then push it to two hours and then push it to three hours and maybe not more than that, especially if you're hydrating really well.
We want to make sure that you do empty your bladder and not overstretch. So scheduling your bathroom breaks, regular lifestyle stuff, and then reaching for the right products, because we're going to have those leaks sometimes.
And I think it's easier to go for the period products that you're used to. I hear about people using all manner of paper products as well, which is not okay. These things are not designed to absorb urine, wick it away from your skin, keep you dry, and protect that intimate skin.
We want that to be healthy. You really have to pick the right pads. TENA makes the right pads. They are designed for this very purpose and there's a wide variety of sizes that are going to meet different needs. The great thing is TENA has a variety of products available for a lot of different needs.
Whether you are lightly leaking, whether you need overnight support, moderate, heavy, during activity, absorbent underwear, and now, the really exciting new product, the Stylish Underwear that's going to be available at Walmart.com.
