How To Keep Urinary System Healthy

Why Is The Bladder Important

Your urinary system or bladder is essential because it filters extra fluid and wastes from your bloodstream, removing them from your body. When your kidneys are functioning normally, they:

Your bladder, urethra and ureters move your urine from your kidneys and then store it until its time to release it from your body.

Do Pelvic Floor Exercises

Pelvic floor exercises, or Kegels, help your bladder to hold in urine. Doing two or three sets of ten Kegels will strengthen these muscles and prevent any leakage during common everyday activities. Kegels can be performed by repeatedly flexing and relaxing your urine-holding muscles. Committing to this daily should aid a distended bladder, meaning one that doesnt empty as well as it should.

Follow A Healthy Eating Plan

Healthy eating may prevent factors that raise your chances of developing UI, such as obesity and diabetes. No direct scientific evidence links nutrition to making UI better or worse.

Many people find that alcohol spicy foods chocolate artificial sweeteners caffeinated, carbonated, and citrus beverages and high-acid foods, such as citrus and tomatoes, may contribute to bladder irritation and inflammation, which can sometimes lead to UI. You may want to avoid these foods and drinks for a time to see if your symptoms improve. A registered dietitian can help you plan meals if youre trying to avoid certain foods that make your UI worse.

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Tips To Keeping Your Bladder Healthy

Most people tend to forget about their bladder until theyre having toilet troubles. Unfortunately, issues with your bladder can be a real burden and arent always easy to overcome. The good news is, staying on top of good bladder health can prevent future problems and help you maintain a positive bathroom experience.

Like with many other organs, a few healthy lifestyle changes can greatly benefit your bladder. Here are our top seven tips to keeping your bladder healthy.

Drink water.

Water is important for countless bodily functions, but its especially beneficial for your bladder. Thats because drinking plenty of water flushes bacteria out of the urinary tract and helps prevent bladder and kidney stones. Unless your doctor has advised otherwise, you should aim to drink at least 6-8 glasses of water per day.

Cut back on caffeine and alcohol.

These substances are known to irritate the bladder and increase the risk of urinary incontinence, especially in women. While they may be fine in moderation, limiting the amount of caffeine and alcohol you consume can help improve your bladder health.

Dont smoke.

Nicotine is a powerful bladder irritant, but thats not the only problem smoking can present. According to the American Cancer Society, smokers are three times more likely to develop bladder cancer than people who dont smoke. If cancer isnt a big enough concern, the chronic cough most smokers develop puts pressure on the bladder that contributes to urinary incontinence.

Take Charge Of Your Bladder Health With Cxbladder

Talk with your doctor about bladder health and how to keep the urinary system clean. If you’re experiencing any bladder cancer symptoms like blood in your urine, seek medical advice right away. Talk with your doctor about using Cxbladder when you begin discussing the diagnosis and monitoring process. Before flushing, look at the color of your urine as an indicator of concerns, including bladder cancer. If there’s blood in your urine or you “see red,” consult with your doctor. If symptoms persist, insist on further evaluation to determine if there could be bladder cancer present.Learn more about Cxbladder Ask our team a question

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What Affects The Amount Of Urine You Produce

The amount of urine you produce depends on many factors, such as the amount of liquid and food you consume and the amount of fluid you lose through sweating and breathing. Certain medicines, medical conditions, and types of food can also affect the amount of urine you produce. Children produce less urine than adults.

What You Can Do: Pelvic Floor Exercises

Your pelvic floor goes from your genital area to the base of your spine. Itâs made of muscles that help control your bladder. To make them stronger, pretend you want to stop yourself from going to the bathroom — you should feel a pull in your genital area and your backside when you squeeze. Try to hold it and build up to 10 seconds, or do 8 to 10 quick squeezes. Over time, this may help keep those muscles working like they should.

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Listen To Your Bladder

Your bladder is made of muscle that expands when it fills and contracts when it’s time to empty. It’s best not to wait too long to urinate, which, over time, can stretch your bladder. Future problems could include incomplete emptying, recurrent infections, and urine traveling all the way up to the kidneys.

Avoid Tobacco To Help Prevent Bladder Cancer

Every year, more than 50,000 people are diagnosed with bladder cancer. Tobacco use is a major risk factor, Badlani warns: Smokers are at least three times as likely to get bladder cancer as nonsmokers. If you’re still smoking or using other forms of tobacco, it’s important to stop for bladder health and other reasons as well. Talk to your doctor about how to quit smoking.

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What Is The Role Of The Bladder

Your bladder, like your belly, is a saclike, expandable organ that contracts when it becomes empty. When signalled, the muscles of your bladder will release urine through your urethra, which is the tube carrying urine out of your body.

As your bladder stretches, it can increase its size from around two inches to over six inches long, depending on how much liquid fills it. Typically, the average human bladder reaches full capacity when it holds 16 to 24 ounces of urine. However, you start feeling the urge to urinate when your bladder is around a quarter full.

What Is The Anatomy Of The Bladder

Your bladder is an extraperitoneal muscular urine reservoir. It sits in your pelvis behind your pubic symphysis the secondary cartilaginous joint located between your right and left pubic bones near your body’s midline. It resembles the size and shape of a pear when it’s empty.

When your bladder functions normally, it works through a complex coordination of neurologic, musculoskeletal and psychological functions, allowing the filling and emptying of the contents of your bladder. The synergic contraction of your bladder pelvic and neck floor muscles and relaxation of detrusor muscles is the main effector of continence. This phenomenon occurs when your bladder fills and stores urine.

Your bladder’s inner lining tucks into folds, and expands to accommodate liquid. The muscle wall of your bladder becomes thicker when your bladder is empty, and your entire bladder becomes firm. When your ureters fill your bladder, it causes your muscle wall to thin and your bladder to move upward toward your abdominal cavity.

You have a type of muscular valve, known as an internal sphincter, that helps keep urine from leaking out. The base of your bladder is triangular, and prevents your urethra from stretching or backflow into your ureters.

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Problem: Urinary Tract Infection

Your urinary tract includes your bladder, kidneys, the tubes that connect them , and the tube that leads pee outside your body . Bacteria can get in through your urethra and infect your urinary tract. This can make your bladder inflamed and swollen, and it can hurt to pee. If you donât have any other health problems, antibiotics usually can clear up a UTI in a few days.

Consider Reducing Your Caffeine Intake

Drinking caffeinated beverages may irritate your bladder and serve as a diuretic . The more caffeine you drink, the more you may have to urinate.

Too much caffeine can also result in dehydration, which can increase your risk of kidney stones, bladder infections, and other problems. There is some evidence that women with interstitial cystitis, also known as IC, should avoid caffeine.

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Keep A Healthy Weight

If youre overweight or have obesity, losing weight may improve your UI, and keeping a healthy weight may prevent UI. If youre overweight, talk with your health care professional about how to lose weight by eating healthy and being physically active. Your chances of developing UI and other diseases and conditions, such as diabetes, increase if you have obesity. Managing obesity and diabetes may lessen UI, especially in women.7

What Can Impact Your Bladder Health

A number of things can affect the health of your bladder, many that you can control with a lifestyle adjustment, but others that you cant. Heres a list of factors that can impact your urinary health, some of which may cause bladder pain and discomfort.

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Stay In Tune With Your Body

Pay attention to how often you feel the urge to urinate. If it becomes easier to delay using the bathroom and you stretch out the time between urinating, you may gradually stretch out your bladder. Also note if it becomes more difficult for you to begin to urinate or you feel that youre not able to completely empty your bladder. These may be early signs of urinary retention.

Be aware of any changes to your urination habits after surgery or a serious back injury. Its common for urinary retention to developeither immediately or over timeafter having surgery or injuring your back.

Talk with your health care professional if you notice any of the signs of urinary retention. You may be able to prevent the condition from becoming more severe if you get help early on.

Add Cruciferous Vegetables To Your Diet

Broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, arugula, collard greens, turnips, and kale are known as cruciferous vegetables. Along with EVOO, these vitamin powerhouses have been shown to protect against cancer because they contain something called isothiocynates. These are potent antioxidants that fight cancer by protecting your cells from damage and fighting cancer-causing agents. They also help reduce inflammation, which can cause cancer, and they can also slow the growth of cancer. Cruciferous vegetables are good for your bladder, but also the kidney and prostate. So include lots of these vegetables in your diet. Keep in mind that they can lose their health benefits by up to 50 percent when cooked in water, so avoid boiling them. Instead, eat them raw or lightly steam them in a bit of extra virgin olive oil and garlic

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Be Aware Of The Amount Of Otc Pills You Take

If you regularly take over-the-counter pain medication, you may be causing kidney damage. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs , including ibuprofen and naproxen, can damage your kidneys if you take them regularly for chronic pain, headaches, or arthritis.

People with no kidney issues who take the medicine occasionally are likely in the clear. However, if you use these medicines daily, you could be risking your kidneys health. Talk with your doctor about kidney-safe treatments if youre coping with pain.

If youre at high risk of kidney damage or kidney disease, its a good idea to have regular kidney function tests. The following people may benefit from regular screening:

• people who are over 60 years old
• people who were born at a low birth weight
• people who have cardiovascular disease or have family with it
• people who have or have a family history of high blood pressure
• people who are obese
• people who believe they may have kidney damage

A regular kidney function test is a great way to know your kidneys health and to check for possible changes. Getting ahead of any damage can help slow or prevent future damage.

Tips For A Healthier Bladder

Fortunately, lifestyle tweaks can help many common bladder symptoms. Here are some ways to maintain a healthy bladder.

1. Keep stress in check

When youre stressed, the muscles in your pelvic floor tense up, which can lead to dysfunction. Finding ways to lower stress by using a meditation app, learning some simple breathing exercises or simply curling up with a good book may help the muscles of your pelvic floor relax.

2. Consider preventive medicine

For young women who get chronic UTIs, it may be worth talking to a healthcare provider about taking a preventive dose of an antibiotic around the time of intercourse. Older women, whose UTIs may be hormone-related, can use an estrogen cream to help balance their vaginal pH.

Cranberry tablets can also be helpful for women of all ages, since a compound in cranberries prevents bacteria from sticking to the urethra. Just avoid cranberry juice, which is generally very high in added sugar and not as potent as tablets.

3. Avoid bladder irritants

Cant seem to pinpoint the cause of your bladder issues? It might be something youre eating or drinking. Common bladder irritants include:

• Coffee, tea and other caffeinated beverages

• Spicy foods and condiments like wasabi

• Citrus fruit and juice

• Soda, sparkling water and other carbonated beverages

4. Stay hydrated

5. Care for your pelvic floor

For women who have bladder problems after childbirth, a physical therapist can help rehabilitate the muscles of the pelvic floor.

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Kidney And Urinary System Parts And Their Functions

• Two kidneys. This pair of purplish-brown organs is located below the ribs toward the middle of the back. Their function is to:

• Remove waste products and drugs from the body

• Balance the body’s fluids

• Release hormones to regulate blood pressure

• Control production of red blood cells

The kidneys remove urea from the blood through tiny filtering units called nephrons. Each nephron consists of a ball formed of small blood capillaries, called a glomerulus, and a small tube called a renal tubule. Urea, together with water and other waste substances, forms the urine as it passes through the nephrons and down the renal tubules of the kidney.

For Those With Urinary Incontinence

Kidneys are the beginning of the urinary tract system and act as the regulator for water, toxins, and minerals in our bodies. Without these functions the body cannot maintain the balance necessary for a healthy person. The kidneys help remove waste products, such as urea and creatinine, from the body. Urea and other wastes are made when the body breaks down protein, such as meat. Creatinine is a waste product of the muscles. As kidney function decreases, the levels of urea and creatinine in the blood increase.

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Drink Plenty Of Water

Knowing that roughly 60% of the human body is water, its already important that you drink more than enough. The recommended amount of water that individuals should consume daily is eight 8-ounce cups. Another good marker is to drink enough water to urinate at least once every three to four hours. Having the optimal fluid intake will concurrently keep your organs hydrated and strengthen bladder muscles after use.

Watch What You Eat And Keep A Food Diary

A condition called interstitial cystitis, which is much more common in women than men, can cause bladder pain, an urgent, frequent need to urinate, and sexual dysfunction. Some people find that certain foods worsen their bladder symptoms, Badlani says. Acidic foods, such as tomatoes and orange juice, may be linked to flare-ups. Keep a diary of your symptoms and see if you can connect them to any foods. If you can, steer clear of these foods and see if you notice any improvement.

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S Of The Urinary Tract

You drink, you pee. But urine is more than just that drink you had a few hours ago. The body produces pee as a way to get rid of waste and extra water that it doesn’t need. Before leaving your body, urine travels through the urinary tract.

The urinary tract is a pathway that includes the:

• kidneys: two bean-shaped organs that filter waste from the blood and produce urine
• ureters: two thin tubes that take pee from the kidney to the bladder
• bladder: a sac that holds pee until it’s time to go to the bathroom
• urethra: the tube that carries urine from the bladder out of the body when you pee

The kidneys are key players in the urinary tract. They do two important jobs filter waste from the blood and produce pee to get rid of it. If they didn’t do this, toxins would quickly build up in your body and make you sick. That’s why you hear about people getting kidney transplants sometimes. You need at least one working kidney to be healthy.

You might wonder how your body ends up with waste it needs to get rid of. Body processes such as digestion and metabolism produce wastes, or byproducts. The body takes what it needs, but the waste has to go somewhere. Thanks to the kidneys and pee, it has a way to get out.

When you’re asked to give a urine sample during a doctor’s visit, the results reveal how well your two kidneys are working. For example, white blood cells in the urine can be a sign of an infection.

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