“I’m not going back to that point in my life. It was so fabulous the first time I slept through the night.”

• What's Causing This?
• Types of Bladder Control Issues:
• Understanding Your Options

What's Causing This?

A lot of women ask, why does this happen? Not all bladder control problems are alike. Some problems are caused by weak muscles, while others are caused by damaged nerves. Weak pelvic floor muscles are the most common cause of urinary incontinence in women.¹ Actually, women are more prone to bladder leaks and accidents because of the way our bodies are built.

A woman’s pelvic floor muscles support her vagina, bladder, rectum, and urethra, making them one of the most important muscle groups in your body. Keeping your pelvic floor muscles strong is important for women of all ages. Like any muscle, they need to be exercised, or they’ll lose tone. And weakened, pelvic muscles can compromise bladder control — and may eventually lead to prolapse, which is the sagging of your pelvic organs.

Factors that can cause pelvic floor muscle weakness include:

• pregnancy and delivery
• menopause
• physically stressful activities/high impact exercise
• chronic cough
• obesity

Types of Bladder Control Issues:

There are a variety of different types of urinary incontinence that women experience. Three of the basic types are:

1. Stress Incontinence: may happen when you laugh, sneeze, cough, or otherwise exert pressure on your pelvic floor such as with strenuous or high impact exercise such as running, heavy lifting or jumping. When your pelvic and sphincter muscles are strong, they can handle the extra pressure from a cough, sneeze, exercise, or laugh. But when those muscles are weak, that sudden pressure can push urine out of the bladder. ¹

2. Urge Incontinence: If you leak urine after a strong, sudden urge to urinate. ¹

An overactive bladder may result in urge incontinence. With urge incontinence, you feel a strong urge to urinate, but cannot make it to the bathroom in time to avoid leaking.

Feelings of urgency may come with certain situations such as being nervous before an appointment; hearing, seeing or touching water; or arriving home and knowing a bathroom is near. Bladder irritants, such as coffee can also contribute to urgency.

Overactive bladder: If you have to urinate eight or more times a day, you may have an overactive bladder. Getting up to urinate two or more times each night is another sign of overactive bladder. With an overactive bladder, you feel strong, sudden urges to urinate, and you also may have urge incontinence.¹

3. Mixed Incontinence: Usually the most common, mixed incontinence is a mix of stress and urge incontinence. You may leak urine with a laugh or sneeze at one time. At another time, you may have a sudden, uncontrollable urge to urinate just before you leak. ¹

Understanding Your Options

Like any other muscles, your pelvic floor muscles can usually be strengthened with proper exercise. Regular pelvic floor muscle exercises (also known as Kegels) have long been recommended by physicians.

However, studies reveal that 50% of women perform Kegels incorrectly.² That's why The Myself^® Trainer was created--to make performing pelvic muscle exercises easier and more effective.

Clearly, using pads, or even diapers does nothing to deal with this gradual loss of control or to improve the underlying issue of muscle weakness. The Myself^® Trainer does.

The Myself^® Trainer is clinically shown to help you strengthen your pelvic muscles safely and effectively.

1 (The National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse) (NKUDIC) What I Need To Know About Bladder Control For Women, (August 2007, page 1) available at www.kidney.niddk.nih.gov The National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NKUDIC)is a service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

2 G. Willy Davila, Gamal M. Ghoniem and Steven D. Wexner (Eds.). (2008). Pelvic Floor Dysfunction A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: Springer.

Your results may vary, based on individual health conditions and consistency of use.

The information provided on this website should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice and care. The information provided here is for educational and informational purposes only. If you have specific needs, please consult your professional health care provider.