did you guys know that November is
bladder health month well today I'm
gonna be debunking the most common
bladder myths including how much water
do you really need to drink do you
really need those eight glasses I'm Dr
Rena Malik urologist and pelvic surgeon
and if you're new here I make content
every Monday and Friday so if you enjoy
this video please make sure to subscribe
so as a urologist and a pelvic surgeon
who specifically sees people with
urinary issues like bladder leakage a
lot of people come in and they're
drinking very little and the reason
they're drinking very little is because
they don't want to leak and so they're
really saying well hey Doc if I drink
less water I'm going to leak less and
that's your myth number one drinking
less water is going to make you leak
less often in fact drinking too little
water make sure you're in very
concentrated so you might look in the
toilet and see that the urine looks kind
of dark in color like dark golden yellow
and you're like hey I probably need to
drink more well that concentrated urine
can actually act like a bladder
irritation what that means is that it
it's the lining of the bladder if you
want to learn more about what things
irritate your bladder make sure you
check out my very old video on bladder
irritants but is still very relevant so
as it becomes a bladder irritant that
means that you may have the Sensation
that you need to go more often or more
frequently or more urgently like Gotta
Go Gotta Go can't make it and sometimes
that may lead to leakage but do you
really need eight glasses of water a day
well that's myth number two so while
many people say that you need to have
eight glasses of water a day that really
means that you need to be having some
form of fluids in that volume a day and
we get a lot of our fluids in fact 20
percent of our fluids come from our food
from the vegetables and the fruits they
all have water in them as well so how do
you keep track of how much you need to
drink the thing is that our bodies can
do an amazing job of regulating our
fluids and it tells us when we need to
drink by giving us signals that we are
thirsty and so when you're you're
thirsty you go ahead and grab a glass of
water and you drink it and then your
body tells you oh I'm not thirsty
anymore and you don't need to drink
anymore basically all the fluid in our
bodies goes through our kidneys which
are these little bean shaped organs that
sit on the back and side of our bodies
and they essentially sense all the fluid
that's going through and it tells us how
much salt is in our bodies if it's too
salty it essentially sends signals to
our brains to say hey get thirsty and
drink more water and when there's too
little salt in the body our body will
say Hey you can just pee out more and
you will regulate that system and make
it equal so we're looking for the
perfect kind of balance of salt and
water in the body and so generally
speaking your body doesn't decide that
it's thirsty until you've lost about two
percent of your body water and that's
not a lot and it's very easy to make up
by drinking fluids however of course
this is for a generally healthy person
if your doctor tells you you need to
drink more fluids is because for example
you've had a kidney transplant or you
get kidney stones or you get recurrent
urinary tract infections then you should
do that there is some data to suggest
that people perform better when they're
well hydrated so people who are like
flying planes or operating in surgery or
Elite athletes should probably
pre-hydrate before doing an activity to
kind of get Peak Performance but you do
want to be careful that you're not over
hydrating in fact sometimes if you drink
too much it can lower the salt in your
body too much and cause something called
hyponatremia which can make you very
very sick so you don't want to over
drink myth number three particularly for
women is that leakage is normal as we
age meaning that yeah it's normal to
have a couple drops of urine leak out
when you're coughing bending sneezing
whatever and in fact that's not
necessarily true incontinence or urinary
leakage happens because there's
abnormalities in the body whether it's
muscular weakness or ligament weakness
of pelvic floor which are the muscles
that hold up our organs and often that
happens in people who've had multiple
pregnancies stand for long periods of
time or are a bit overweight because of
the weight on the pelvic floor or if
it's because your bladder is having
overactive contractions meaning it's
squeezing and telling you you need to
pee before your bladder is actually full
both of those things are actually
abnormal and we have lots of things that
we can offer to help benefit those
including medications non-medications
minimally invasive procedures or just
simple Lifestyle Changes I've made tons
of videos on overactive bladder and
stress urinary incontinence if you want
to learn more make sure you check out
those playlists the fourth myth is that
you have to shower after sex to prevent
urinary tract infections a lot of people
say they do this a lot of people mention
this but there is no evidence that
showering after sex is going to prevent
UTIs in fact if you're showering too
much you can dry out the skin of your
vulva and it can become irritated and
dry and cause things like itching or
make you even feel like you have a UTI
so if you want to shower after sex by
all means go ahead but if you don't want
to you don't have to it's not
necessarily going to prevent urinary
tract infections and myth number five is
that you get urinary tract infections
because you're dirty and that's not true
at all 100 it's not because you're
wiping incorrectly most people know how
to wipe themselves just fine and are not
having any issues and that's not the
reason a lot of people get sort of
insecure when they come see me because
they're like I'm getting recurrent UTIs
but I'm very very clean in fact I tell
people my recurrent UTI patients are
probably the cleanest patients there are
and so really the reasons you get UTIs
can be many it can be because you have
anatomic problems with the way your
bladder empties or the way your kidney
is empty it can be because you're having
functional issues of the bladder and
it's not squeezing correctly or it can
be because you're going through
menopause and your hormones have changed
making it more likely that you you're
going to get urinary tract infections
all right well happy November bladder
health month I hope that you guys
learned something about your bladder and
take it with you and use it on a regular
basis drink when you're thirsty or if
you're about to do something really
intense have a glass of water before
that to help improve your focus but
otherwise drink when you're thirsty
don't worry that you're dirty and see a
doctor if you're having leakage because
we can help you as always remember to
take care of yourself because you're
worth it
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thank you
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