Breathe
By Mariana Castro Sordo, "the queen of the prostate".
There comes a time in many people's lives when the pelvic floor begins to give a lot, but a lot of trouble, and this is for various reasons, either due to weakness or excessive tension, or for much more complex issues, such as prostatitis or cancer in any part of the lower abdomen.
This affects both men and women indistinctly, and has a great impact on the quality of life, but today I would like to focus on those issues whose origin ends up being bad habits that are generally transmitted within families from generation to generation.
Since ancient times we have several beliefs that have been instilled in us and that if we scratch a little no one knows where they originated, since what is said is: that's how my mother or my grandmother taught me all my life. Among these beliefs or myths we have:
1. It's terrible to hold back the urge to pee, which of course is true!
2. What they did not tell us is that it is just as bad to take advantage of every bathroom we have nearby or when they told us to go to the bathroom that we are about to leave, and we force ourselves to urinate, even if we did not feel like it or just went, could contribute to having a pelvic floor with excess tension that can then cause constipation and / or problems to empty the bladder completely (which in turn may be the origin of recurrent urinary tract infections) It may also be the cause of what we call overflow urinary incontinence, which consists of losing the ability to feel the urge to go to the bathroom, while the bladder continues to fill over the hours, to the point of ending up in an emergency room emptying the bladder through a catheter.
On the other hand, frequent peeing contributes to frequency incontinence, where people have to go to the bathroom up to every 15 minutes, even though there is so little urine in the bladder (if we measure it, it would be about half a wheelie). Imagine what happens when we encounter daily traffic!
3. Urine is dirty or contaminated False! Although urine is full of wastes, these are the leftovers of elements that we eat and that we are going to eat the next day, such as calcium, sodium and potassium.
4. The toilets in public restrooms are the dirtiest things in the world! Although many times they are very dirty, it is said that the dirtiest part of a public restroom is neither the toilet nor the floor, surprisingly and not so much, the dirtiest place of all is the door handle, since we do not know the hygiene habits of all the people who touch it and yes, the feces are full of bacteria.
5. We should not sit down but adopt a posture of "little eagle" to avoid touching it and thus avoid all kinds of infections False! This causes the pelvic floor muscles to not be able to relax enough to empty the bladder completely and often results in problems of excess tension or contractures, leading to constipation or not being able to empty it completely and being prone to urinary tract infections, it also favors the weakening of the muscles, since it is very difficult for a muscle with excess tension to contract well.
Urine, like blood, is sterile, and it also has the same temperature as the human body, which on average is 36ºC, so it has no bacteria, but if it remains stagnant then it is when it becomes fertile ground for it to fill with bacteria, as with many things we eat, for example leaving a piece of bread in the cupboard for a long time or a piece of cheese that eventually fills with fungus, so it is much more important to get the muscles to relax and the bladder to empty completely, so if your mother or grandmother was very insistent about peeing "aguilita", it is much more worthwhile to clean the part where you are going to sit and go to the bathroom properly.
So if there is something I want to try to convey to you today is that we stop having in our lives this bunch of bad habits that bring us pelvic floor problems and that can mostly be avoided and thus maintain a healthy pelvic floor. And preferably cut these myths and beliefs and stop passing them on to the next generations. And well, if you are already inside any problem caused by these bad habits, know that all this can be treated with great success with pelvic floor therapy.
Improve your habits and go to the bathroom as you go and that's it!
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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