Why Do I Leak After I Pee?

Why do I leak after I pee? It’s not just you. Over half of women experience bladder leaks, and it can be pretty embarrassing and frustrating. 

There are many causes for bladder leaks, including pregnancy, menopause, obesity, and even the shape of your pelvic floor muscles. 

The good news is that there are a lot of ways to treat or prevent these pesky problems! To learn more, check out this article with ten possible causes for bladder leakage and how to treat them.

Urine Leakage

Leaking urine is a common problem for women. Leaks can be frustrating and embarrassing, but they’re often easy to fix once you understand the problem. A little education goes a long way toward fixing leaks—and preventing new ones!

Here are Common Reasons On Why Do I leak After I Pee?

There are many causes for urine leakage, including:

1. Pregnancy and childbirth: Sometimes, women experience urine leakage during pregnancy or after giving birth. This may be due to hormone fluctuations or weight gain, or it could be due to a specific injury from birth. Some women develop strong incontinence in one pregnancy and then have no leakage in subsequent pregnancies.
2. Age-related changes: After menopause, estrogen levels fall, which can cause significant thinning of your vaginal tissues and a loss of tone in your pelvic floor muscles and supporting tissues. Menopausal women often feel like their “insides are falling out.” Many factors influence the severity of urine leakage after menopause, including weight, physical activity level, and diet. Some women develop stress incontinence after menopause because they’ve lost muscle tone in their pelvic floor. The loss of muscle tone makes it harder for these muscles to close tightly around the urethra, allowing urine to leak out when you sneeze, laugh, cough, or exercise. Stress incontinence can also occur after a hysterectomy if you’ve had your ovaries removed as well. 
3. Obesity: Being overweight puts pressure on the bladder, making it more difficult for it to hold urine. In addition, fat cells in obese women secrete greater amounts of estrogen than the ovaries do, leading to problems such as stress incontinence or a prolapsed bladder.
4. Pessary: A pessary is a small device inserted into the vagina by a doctor to support pelvic organs that have dropped due to age, childbirth, or obesity. The pessary puts pressure on the urethra much in the same way that your uterus puts pressure on it when you have a prolapsed uterus. If not fitted properly, this can cause stress incontinence.
5. Pelvic floor muscle problems: Stress incontinence is caused by weak pelvic floor muscles that cannot support the urethra and bladder effectively. The bladder leaks because it can’t hold urine inside. You could tighten up your pelvic floor muscles by doing Kegel exercises, but if the problem is with the muscles themselves (not just a weakness caused by being out of practice), learning how to do Kegels correctly will not resolve the leakage. Research shows that only 40 percent of women do their exercises correctly. Click Here Learn How To Do Pelvic Floor Exercise 
6. Nerve damage: In rare cases, nerve damage from diabetes, multiple sclerosis, or surgery such as radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer could cause stress incontinence.
7. Bladder problems: The bladder may not empty properly due to bladder stones, tumors in the bladder wall, an overactive bladder, bladder weakness, or spinal cord injury.
8. Kidney problems: Sometimes urine leakage is due to problems with your kidneys, such as an enlarged prostate blocking the urethra (in men) or a kidney stone.
9. Aging: The tissues of your body become less elastic as you get older, which makes them more likely to strain when you cough or sneeze. This increased pressure on the bladder from straining can cause urine leakage.
10. Long-term (chronic) cough: A chronic cough can lead to incontinence because of increased pressure on the bladder from coughing. This is especially true in older women because of their weaker pelvic floor muscles. These causes for urine leakage may overlap. For example, when nerve damage affects the bladder’s ability to contract and relax properly, you can experience stress incontinence and a weakened bladder.

How to treat Urine leakage

Weight loss: Losing weight will reduce pressure on your bladder and also help diminish stress urinary incontinence.

Regular pelvic floor muscle exercises: Kegel exercises strengthen the pelvic floor muscles that support the urethra and bladder, keeping them closed longer to prevent urine leakage. When performed regularly, these exercises can greatly improve your condition if this is a factor in your incontinence.

Medical devices: Kegel devices are available that can help you do your exercises correctly. They range from simple weights to electrical stimulators, which cause the muscles to contract when you use them.

Medications: Medications are sometimes used in cases where bladder problems underlie your stress urinary incontinence. These drugs relax the muscles of your bladder or reduce muscle spasms that can cause leakage.

Surgery: Another option for stress urinary incontinence is surgery. Several procedures exist that tighten vaginal muscles to support your urethra and bladder. Pessaries may also be removed if they are no longer needed once the problem has been resolved. Surgery isn’t often recommended because it doesn’t always solve the problem permanently. If other treatments for stress urinary incontinence haven’t worked, your doctor may recommend surgery, and pregnancy is not a concern for you.

Conclusion

If you have stress urinary incontinence your doctor might recommend Kegel exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. If these methods don’t help, surgery could be recommended.

When to seek medical advice:

You need to see a doctor as soon as possible if you’re experiencing urine leakage while you exercise, cough, laugh, jump, sneeze or lift something. This could be a sign of stress urinary incontinence.

You’ll need to discuss your symptoms with your doctor before trying any home remedies for urine leakage.