Men can experience bladder, bowel, sexual problems and pelvic pain. Physiotherapy and minor lifestyle changes can help reduce the symptoms. To find out more about your pelvic floor muscles, what can go wrong and what you can do to help, have a look at these short Pelvic Health Information videos
Urinary incontinence is the involuntary loss of urine. This can be categorized into different types of urinary incontinence as described below:
Stress Urinary Incontinence
This is when you leak urine when there is stress on the bladder. This can happen when you cough, sneeze, get up from a chair, run or during sports, lift something, laugh or during sexual intercourse.
What can you do?
- There are a number of pelvic floor training apps that you can download for free or you can purchase the NHS Squeezy App for Men for a small fee which is a useful visual tool and exercise reminder.
- Follow the advice in this leaflet to ensure healthy bladder habits POGP Promoting Continence
- Find out about your pelvic floor muscles and how to strengthen them by reading the POGP Pelvic Floor Muscles and Exercises for Men leaflet
- Follow the advice in the Post Micturition Dribble Leaflet to help prevent something called after dribble. This is the loss of a few drops of urine after the main stream, when the bladder appears to be empty.
Overactive bladder (also called irritable bladder)
There are three common problems experienced by people with Overactive Bladder.
Firstly you may experience urgency. This is when you need to go to the toilet suddenly and if you do not get there quickly enough, the bladder muscle starts to squeeze and you may leak urine.
Secondly you may experience frequency. This is when you need to go to the toilet a lot, but only pass small amounts of urine. It is normal to go to the toilet between 5 and 8 times a day and no more than once during the night. A healthy adult bladder should hold 200-300ml through the day.
Finally, you may experience nocturia. This is when you have to empty your bladder several times in the night.
What can you do?
- Find our more in the NHS Lothian Overactive bladder leaflet
- Fill in an NHS Lothian bladder diary to record information about your drinking and bladder habits.
- Watch this 12 minute video about How To Train Your Bladder
- Follow the 6 Week Bladder Retraining Programme from the National Association for Continence.
- Fill in another bladder diary when you have finished it or just before your physiotherapy appointment to show us how well you have done.
