Do you often feel a sense of urgency to go to the toilet and when you rush there to empty, you realise there was only a small amount of urine passed?
This is called urinary urgency and can be a symptom of overactive bladder, a condition which is often associated with urinary frequency, urgency and urge incontinence.
There can be a few causes of this. Jane, a myPhysioSA for her Women’s Health Physiotherapist in Adelaide, discusses one of the common causes, which is an overactive detrusor muscle. This is the muscular wall that surrounds the bladder and contracts to allow you to pass urine.
If your detrusor muscle becomes overactive, called overactive bladder, then you can go to the toilet much more often than the usual 4-6 times per day.
Jane explains it all in this video, and then gives some practical advice of how to start taking control of the urgency and how to train your overactive detrusor muscle to reduce urgency.
Symptoms include:
Urgency- This means that you get a sudden urgent desire to pass urine. You are not able to put off going to the toilet.
Frequency- This means going to the toilet often – more than seven times a day. In many cases it is a lot more than seven times a day.
Nocturia- This means waking to go to the toilet more than once at night.
Urge incontinence occurs in some cases. This is a leaking of urine before you can get to the toilet when you have a feeling of urgency.
