So we've all been there you've been at your desk typing away an email
or working on a project or watching a movie or just simply doing something that you don't
want to stop and all of a sudden you get that urge that sudden desire to go to the bathroom
and what do you do well some of us will stop what we're doing and go to the bathroom
and others of us will keep doing what we're doing and say "Hey hold on we'll go in a couple minutes
when we're done with this particular thing we're working on", so is that going to create a problem
if you hold your urine for too long what if you do it all the time are you one of those people who
has a bladder like a race horse and you never have to go to the bathroom is that a badge of
honor that you're wearing well I'm Dr. Rena Malik, Urologist and Pelvic Surgeon, and today I'm going
to explain what happens when you hold your pee for too long and how that can affect your health
so what happens when your bladder is filling normally your bladder is like a balloon and
you take in fluids and your body is then circulating those fluids into your body
and in through your kidneys the urine then goes down your ureters and into your bladder
and your bladder is constantly filling and so what happens as it fills normally for the first about
three to six ounces or 100 to 200 ml you really won't notice a whole lot of anything going on
then you might notice that there's something in your bladder like okay i feel like there's some
urine there and i could go if i wanted to and then at about 10 to 20 ounces or 300 to 600 ml
you start feeling the urge to go to the bathroom and that's just
normal bladder function that's what happens and the way this happens is that your bladders
has these receptors on the wall that are called stretch receptors and as the bladder fills these
stretch receptors signals to your brain and when they hit a certain point your brain knows hey it's
time to go but you all know that you can if you have a normal neurologic system you can postpone
going to the bathroom and your brain can say hold off and you can tighten your sphincter and avoid
urine from coming out so what's the big deal right so what if i do this all the time is it really
going to harm me well if you're doing it once in a while it's probably not going to be a huge problem
but over time the signals from your bladder to your brain can change and your brain can
start thinking that your bladder is able to hold more and more fluid so your capacity is larger
again in and of itself not a horrible problem but once you have a stretched out bladder
the muscles in the bladder wall can get weaker over time and when they get weaker over time
when you go to the bathroom to empty you might notice that you're not able to empty everything
that's in your bladder you might feel like hey there's something still in there and subsequently
you might start noticing that you really have to go a lot sooner than you meant to before
and in very extreme circumstances and i definitely have seen this particularly in people who work in
high stress environments where they can't really leave their job like hairdressers teachers nurses
surgeons like myself who tend to hold their urine for long periods of time they can actually stop
squeezing their bladder all together and what happens well one if you can't squeeze at all and
you can't empty your urine at all you'll need to catheterize yourself to empty your bladder now i
know that sounds horrible it definitely is a huge change in life and something that people don't
want to deal with another thing that can happen is you can start getting bladder infections and when
you get bladder infections you might notice that you're having pain when you urinate you get that
urge more and more often and you're rushing to the bathroom and when you get there only a little bit
is coming out and these can be really painful and really annoying and that's because all that
urine that you're leaving behind is now food for bacteria to eat and that bacteria is just having
a buffet because your bladder is never empty conversely the other thing that can happen is
if you're constantly tightening the sphincter and holding your urine in you can get what's called a
high tone pelvic floor i talk about this all the time so if you've been following me for a long
time you've probably heard this before but when you get a high tone pelvic floor what is that
well underneath your bladder is a bowl of muscles that hold up that bladder and all the organs in
your body that are down there so your rectum your bladder and women your uterus and these muscles
when they're clenched all the time they can become hyperactive and what happens then is that these
muscles can cause a lot of symptoms because they're not relaxing it's just as if you were
constantly flexing your arm and you never relaxed eventually this arm would start hurting and so in
some cases you might notice that you have pelvic pain so for women they might see vaginal pain and
for men you might feel pain in the testicles or in the penis and you can also get back pain and
you can get symptoms in your bladder those can be more urgency more frequency and you're running to
the bathroom all the time with the urge gotta go gotta go and sometimes you might even leak urine
also you might notice some constipation because those muscles are also clenching
your anus clothes and so it's harder for you to push out that stool through that clenched muscle
so bottom line if you need to hold it once in a while that's probably okay but if you're one of
those people who holds it all the time with that bladder of a racehorse you might want to stop you
might want to start acknowledging that urge when you feel it and actually going to the bathroom
start prioritizing your health and make sure that you make time to do a normal body function
which is going to the bathroom so whatever it is put a timer on your phone if you don't get
that sensation for 12 hours you should probably be going at least every four hours so put a timer on
your phone for every four hours and make sure you go to the bathroom when that timer goes off and
when you go if you're not emptying completely make sure you sit down relax on the toilet don't hover
because that also clenches those pelvic floor muscles so sit on the toilet make sure you relax
and empty your bladder completely if you're not sure stand up walk around the bathroom sit back
down and go again for a second time don't strain or push it out but definitely try to just relax
and let the urine come out all right i hope that was helpful for you if you like my channel please
remember to subscribe and as always remember to take care of yourself because you're worth it