Bladder, my worst fear has come true!

[Strangeness]

Well it's 3 weeks on friday since tamzin was born and I thought things were going really well until last night I got up in the night to go to the toilet and stood to look in the mirror (I have conjunctivitis as well) and I just started peeing and couldn't stop Luckily I had a pad on cos I'm still losing a bit from the birth so I didn't soak myself but I'm deverstated! I tried the stop and start test this morning and couldn't stop myself so I think my pelvic floor is shot to pieces! Is this normal? I'm really papranoid about it now and just feel like crying! I've been doing my pelvic floor exercises throughout and after pregnancy and it's still happened How come it's taken til now to show or have I just not noticed from wearing pads anyway? Will it go away? I feel so bad

 

[Sherlock]

You have my sympathy hun you really do.

I've been in incontinence hell since LO was born. And that was over 3 months ago now I've become quite the expert on it all (you know me, I like to read ) But things can get better in their own time. Please know that. I've improved a lot since giving birth although I still have a long way to go. But there are different causes for incontinence after giving birth. It depends what is causing yours.

All I can say is keep doing your pelvic floor. As many times a day as you can.

Also when it happens see if there is any sensation there. As in if you can feel the need to pee or if you just go and only know because you've wet yourself. I found that I was totally numb for a couple of weeks after giving birth anyways, but once that passed I realised I didn't have any sensation with regards to having a full bladder or not. Nor was I able to control when I leaked urine. So have to wee every 20 minutes or so or else

My suggestions are

1) Sip water throughout the day. If you have a full glass of water make sure you go to the loo a few times over the next couple of hours.

2) Find out when its at its worse, for example I really suffer when I go from sitting to standing. I *have* to go to the loo and empty my bladder asap or else I just leak till its empty. Then make sure you go at those times.

3) Pay attention to all the sensations and so on. Do you have an urge to wee? Do you start weeing and then realise? Can you control it at all and if so how much.

4) Go see a Registrar GP (your GP practice should have one). They may want to wait a few weeks before giving an internal but they may check now. They can feel if anything is out of place there.

5) If you continue being incontinent ask for a referral to see the nurse/incontinence assessor. You can get pads on prescription (I was told I couldn't and only found out this past week I actually could , its cost me a small forutine in pads). See how many you get through a day and if its any less than 10, don't tell them that. Tell them 10 plus. Otherwise you may not be classed as needing pads on NHS.

Drop me a PM if you want to talk some more about it. I'm on IM also. I tend not to post much on this on the forum as tbh its not the nicest thing to have to discuss and no one really seems to have the problem on quite the same scale/level as me.

 

[clarey]

Hi, I just wanted to give you a little reassurance, poor Sherlock has had a terrible time with this, but I had similar experience to you at around 3 weeks and it wasnt permanent. It did shock me into practicing my pelvic floors a bit more regularly though, I made sure I did them at every feed and although I had a few little accidents everything has been fine for at least the past 3 months, my LO is 5 1/2 months now.
Try not to panic just yet, hopefully its just due to everything settling down and your muscles will strengthen again

 

[fran_23]

Hi hun after i had Hayden i could hardly feel when i was peeing everything was numb for weeks and i couldnt control my weeing for ages...like when i went to go it just all came flooding out in all directions and i couldn;t feel it or control it! I didnt wee myself but i didnt have that urge when you know you need to go i think i was leaking wee but didn't really know because of the maternity pads! it actually turned out i had a uti-after i had antibiotics and my stitches all healed up, i started getting feeling back slowly, it took ages for me to feel completely normal again!! it doesnt mean it will be like that forever its quite common- i know its a paing but keep trying to do you pelvic floor excercises when you can it does help if you persevere!!!