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Urinary incontinence in older women in the saddle

Hello All. I am 63, ride dressage and have a big bouncy wonderful warmblood who is the bees knees. The hard part is that when I do the sitting trot, I have a problem. I have terrible stress incontinence which just shakes any last drop of pee out of my body. I am using these pee proof undies but find that this only happens at the sitting trot. I pee before I get on. I still have the problem. The last post I saw about this was in 2009, and one man suggested we should just all see a doctor. (I am married to a doctor, and my OB-GYN said, “Maybe ride less?” so don’t get me started.) I am curious to hear 1) if this is a common problem with older women who have had kids (I have had four deliveries, three live births); 2) what have you found helped?

Do you do kegal exercises? I woudl think that would help.

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Schedule an appointment with a pelvic floor therapist to get evaluated. Most doctors just aren’t experts on this.

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Agree, get a consult with a urogynocologist. I wish I knee about this when I was riding. They may be able to guide you. Perhaps even unlock some tightness which will help you sit better. My therapist exclaimed over my tight hips. My only reply was ,yes my horse trainer commented on this . We have discussed this specialty here on coth before. Be aware exam and PT are internal and some might be disturbed by it. Get a doctor exam before jumping in to looking for a therapist.

Many women have this issue and it often has nothing to do with age. My friend has this issue and she is not close to 60s, but has had children. My mother-in-law also had minor incontinence issues starting in her 60s and she wasn’t active so I don’t think they are linked - just that incontinence can be exacerbated by activity. A specialist is where I’d start as @hoopoe suggests!

After thoroughly wetting myself during a spook-and-bolt incident a number of years ago, I asked my doctor for a referral to an incontinence specialist. I went through physical therapy, with a PT that specialized in female incontinence and saw some improvement, but not enough. I then had surgery, a sling procedure.

It is an understatement to say it was life changing. Completely solved the problem. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.

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As a temporary aid, consider avoiding caffeine and see what impact a large size tampon has. Caffeine is a bladder irritant, and the tampon may apply just enough pressure to “seal the leak”.

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IMHO, incontinence isn’t necessarily an age thing. My second-born was 10lb 5 oz and was rather impatient to get out into the world. No time for drugs!

So while I don’t have any suggestions (other than what has already been suggested, as it’s also been suggested to me by my doctor), I definitely empathize with you. Men don’t know how good they have it :roll_eyes:

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Let me start by saying that I am SO happy that a sling has helped you- that is fabulous!

I would be remiss not to speak up though. I work in a healthcare field where I work with lots of women dealing with incontinence. My view is skewed somewhat because if they are seeing me it’s because they are having an issue with their sling, but their stories are so sad. Many many women that receive slings suffer greatly and wish they had never done the procedure. There are several large lawsuits surrounding them as well, and many doctors won’t put them in anymore. I work closely with a doctor that specializes in removing them, and women come from all over the country to see him.

If you do decide to proceed with some type of surgical intervention please ask your doctor about uretheral bulking injections, such as macroplastique.

Sorry for the rant, I realize you didn’t ask about surgery, but in case anyone else is reading this thread that is considering it, I wanted the share.

Edit to add: Incontinence is much more common then you think! I see women for this issue that are as young as early 40’s- often after having several children.

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You don’t have to be old to have this issue. I get it when I laugh to hard or sometimes sitting the trot as well. Thanks to my kids, as never had it before.

I was told to go to PT and get a chiro for alignment. I did the PT part. Super helpful. Now need to find a good chiro to align me.

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Also life changing sling procedure here as well. I was not able to sneeze or cough without wetting myself prior. Now I’m able to sit bucks spooks and jump without any issue.

paintedpony- the tampon doesn’t “seal the leak”- it changes the angle of the urethra as well as putting some pressure on it. It does help tho! PT and exercises take a while to help and may not fix the problem.
I had a Burch suspension many years (difficult forceps delivery) and still bless my gyne for talking me into it.

I couldn’t do all of the PT. I’ve had medical trauma in the past and I just couldn’t be comfortable with it.

I did do the external stuff though, and one of her comments was that I have significant amount of damage in abdomen from past falls. My muscles are tight and my pelvis doesn’t line of right. I imagine there is some scar tissue in there as well. So it isn’t always childbirth that gives you this problem.

There are some medications that can help. I take one of them but I have a slightly different problem.

To add a bit of humor to this topic, many years ago there was an older woman who took the lesson before me at my trainer’s, so I often saw part of her lesson. One day, her horse spooked at something, bolted, and she fell off. The horse unfortunately decided then that this was a fun game. He never did it with the trainer on him or a confident rider. She absolutely loved the horse and wanted to ride him. But over and over after that, even without any excuse for a spook after that first time, the horse would be looking great in a lesson, then abruptly bolt, she would freak out, and she would eventually fall off.

She also, being an older lady with several kids, had a few issues with stress incontinence, and she would pee during these events. This annoyed and embarrassed her even more, in particular since she had just bought a new saddle before it all started. She would pick herself up from the dirt and say, “&%@#, I peed my pants!”

One day, she showed up and announced to the trainer that she had resigned herself to additional measures, and she had decided that she was going to wear Depends for lessons from now on. She might not be able to stay on, but dadgumit, she was not going to pee all over her new saddle anymore while her horse was running around before she fell off.

So that day, she was having a good lesson, and then halfway through, Mr. Hyde took over from Dr. Jekyll, and the horse jumped into his game and started running away. And the woman sat up there thinking, I am not going to pee all over my saddle today. You can’t make me, horse, so there. She rode the bolt with newfound confidence, and it took all the fun out of it. The horse stopped after a short run, with her still atop, and looked around at her with the most “what happened? This isn’t how it goes” expression.

Trainer, who had been trying unsuccessfully all sorts of techniques for weeks for the woman to apply during this trick to overcome it, promptly said that what she needed to do was simply to always ride in Depends. The woman did so, not even “using” the Depends now, but having them there as a security measure, and the horse, after one or two halfhearted attempts, gave up on that entertainment and started respecting her more.

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Exactly, the pressure exerted through vaginal wall ! LOL, I was not suggesting the tampon was collecting urine, but see how you could have read it that way.

Laughing here, as I remember my grandmother telling me she had diarrhea from putting oil into her ear canal prior to having impacted wax removed.

Hello!
I have the same issues! Ive seen my DR and we did the Kegals and tried retaining nothing has worked. The simple act of getting out of my car I leak…I ride leak… I went to look at a new horse and even with pad I leaked so bad my pants were wet with a perfect siluette that was left I was so embarrassed . I am over it. I have a appt in two weeks to do the urthera bulking before the sling so I would love to hear about any experiences others have with the bulking.

Hello
I am seeing my Dr about macroplastique in a couple weeks. Could you share you experiences with this? I am curious from other people experiences, I trust my Dr. but… its always good to hear from actual people who have had it done. Thank you

my post op nurse earlier this month had Botox to control her bladder leaking

A Urogynocologist might have insight to this approach