Heart health related incontinence issues?
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Archives1
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From what I have read, over 50% of those with heart failure/issues also have bladder incontinence. Some of it has to do with a number of medications needed to treat the heart. For me, my incontinence was a problem long before being diagnosed with heart failure, but it seems to have worsened these last several years. I also had recent back surgery which has compounded things.
Archives1
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Some folks like me I take a diuretic med that removes excess water from the body.
Also most but not all blood pressure meds also have a diuretic in them.
I was on 1 bp med that messed with my potassium as in lowered and at times depleted it. Which can mess with the muscles including the heart and the bladder which is a muscle.
Also most but not all blood pressure meds also have a diuretic in them.
I was on 1 bp med that messed with my potassium as in lowered and at times depleted it. Which can mess with the muscles including the heart and the bladder which is a muscle.
Archives1
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Have 2 heart conditions, High Blood Pressure and A-Fib. Take medication for both, and BP is "under control". I guess A-Fib is, too, since I haven't had a stroke, except possibly when in a coma in ICU 8 years ago. I had a blood clot in leg, 3 years ago, and they changed my blood thinner to a newer & better one. That might have been related to my Neurosurgery, though. A-Fib diagnosed later, after the coma. They discovered the stroke when finding the brain growths 4 years ago. We hadn't known about it prior. Oh. How about diabetes? How many of us are paired with that? That has lots of medications, many of which I don't take. It's so endemic, how would you figure that out? Statistics?
So, how do you separate them? I have no memory of any drug starting or ending and a change in my incontinence, maybe because most of the changes had to do with hospitalization, and it's improved to "Light", each time, most of the time very slowly, but improved. And a bad memory. I've seen some posts here where there does seem to be a correlation.
I haven't found a study that pairs non-incontinence Medication and Incontinence. Anyone else? Reader's Digest and People Magazine don't count. Neither does the Globe or the National Enquirer. Neither does the AARP magazine.
I never use FaceBook for medical things (I don't use it, period.) And rarely a regular search engine. Mostly use Google Scholar for medical matters, or go directly to the science journal website. That website URL is Elsevier, I think. It's:
If you get the "accept cookies" thing, be sure to change it from Every-damn-thing-including being sold to a million advertisers" to "strictly necessary".
Some articles are in a foreign language called Obscure Science Language. If the abstract is unreadable, I never bother to look for the entire thing, any more. I might do it only if it was about incontinence and I could at least understand what the subject of the article was.
I can go there without "registering", maybe because of my Medifocus subscription - I just click the link to any article that looks promising. Then I can go anywhere else on the site.
I have a subscription for any A-Fib and Peripheral Neuropathy science journal articles, so I don't miss anything for that. Incontinence in those two sets of articles hasn't come up there since about 2014, when I started getting them, but I've done little back-research. You only go to the Abstracts, which can tell you if you even want to read the entire study. The page also lists any related articles. The actual journal articles are expensive to read, but: many become available for free with various links in the Elsevier site - and look for the Government's "PubMed" links. Any science study with government money has to become free on the PubMed site a year after publication in a science journal. The site's "search" function has a learning curve and I'm not finished learning.
My subscription is through Medifocus, and cheap for what I need, but not everyone would agree with the word "cheap". And last I checked, Incontinence wasn't one of the conditions they cover, darn it! There is about a dozen conditions they do cover, I think. Look at the authors' names. Sometimes they write other articles on the topic, or will.
Good luck to us all. I will be very grateful if anyone comes up with some references or studies. We could all use those, I expect.
So, how do you separate them? I have no memory of any drug starting or ending and a change in my incontinence, maybe because most of the changes had to do with hospitalization, and it's improved to "Light", each time, most of the time very slowly, but improved. And a bad memory. I've seen some posts here where there does seem to be a correlation.
I haven't found a study that pairs non-incontinence Medication and Incontinence. Anyone else? Reader's Digest and People Magazine don't count. Neither does the Globe or the National Enquirer. Neither does the AARP magazine.
I never use FaceBook for medical things (I don't use it, period.) And rarely a regular search engine. Mostly use Google Scholar for medical matters, or go directly to the science journal website. That website URL is Elsevier, I think. It's:
If you get the "accept cookies" thing, be sure to change it from Every-damn-thing-including being sold to a million advertisers" to "strictly necessary".
Some articles are in a foreign language called Obscure Science Language. If the abstract is unreadable, I never bother to look for the entire thing, any more. I might do it only if it was about incontinence and I could at least understand what the subject of the article was.
I can go there without "registering", maybe because of my Medifocus subscription - I just click the link to any article that looks promising. Then I can go anywhere else on the site.
I have a subscription for any A-Fib and Peripheral Neuropathy science journal articles, so I don't miss anything for that. Incontinence in those two sets of articles hasn't come up there since about 2014, when I started getting them, but I've done little back-research. You only go to the Abstracts, which can tell you if you even want to read the entire study. The page also lists any related articles. The actual journal articles are expensive to read, but: many become available for free with various links in the Elsevier site - and look for the Government's "PubMed" links. Any science study with government money has to become free on the PubMed site a year after publication in a science journal. The site's "search" function has a learning curve and I'm not finished learning.
My subscription is through Medifocus, and cheap for what I need, but not everyone would agree with the word "cheap". And last I checked, Incontinence wasn't one of the conditions they cover, darn it! There is about a dozen conditions they do cover, I think. Look at the authors' names. Sometimes they write other articles on the topic, or will.
Good luck to us all. I will be very grateful if anyone comes up with some references or studies. We could all use those, I expect.
Archives1
Staff member
I have heard anecdotal reports of a fib being related to an INCREASE in incontinence. The theory is that to get your heart out of a fib, your body sends chemicals to your cells to dump fluids, to make your heart work easier. That results in what has been referred to “the big pee”. It has happened to me at night when I feel I have flooded the bedroom, I go so much. My usual containment procedures are totally inadequate. Mind you, the doctors look at me like I’m out of my mind when I bring it up….
Archives1
Staff member
I don’t know anything about the relationship to heart and bladder conditions. My mom regularly reports that her blood pressure medications make her pee more often, particularly at night. Ditto with my dad. I can speak from personal experience that “stimulating” antidepressants like Cymbalta and Wellbutrin amplify all of my incontinence symptoms, as do true stimulants, like Adderall.
Sorry you have heart trouble.
Sorry you have heart trouble.
Archives1
Staff member
@snow Why thank you! I will be walking about a mile and a half to my appointment yet I am fortunate to be so close to a bigger hospital. I am going to let them do their job but hearing all this stuff about meds makes me a bit uneasy. 9 times out of 10 meds for anything don't work like they should so it will be interesting. I will notify them about incontinence as well, but they already asked about that with the questionnaire.
Archives1
Staff member
Hi @ICGamer, walking a mile and a half to an appointment or anything else for that matter, is good for your heart. Aerobic exercise like walking is highly recommended for heart issues (with doctor approval of course) and doing regular exercise like that can really work wonders. Even if you're busy most of the time, set aside time just for yourself each day so you can take a walk or do whatever exercise you like to do.
But I also don't know about the relationship that heart and bladder conditions have to each other and can really offer no insight to it.
But I also don't know about the relationship that heart and bladder conditions have to each other and can really offer no insight to it.
Archives1
Staff member
Heavy exercise reduces my need to pee - that's fairly obvious.
Snow. Thanks for idea. I'm hoping to see a cardiologist soon as it's been way beyond the recommended interval since last time, & I'll try to remember to specifically ask.
ICGamer: Yeah, and it seems like they make you fill out that questionaire, again, every year or more. But I do sometimes wonder how much attention they give it; all those tiny check boxes, and some forms ask a few questions in "reverse", where "no" means you do have whatever.
We should really try to remind them of the Incontinence.
Then there is the difference in forms from doctor to doctor. Remember when a certain First Lady wanted the Medical Insurance business to standardize the form to one? It was due to save millions a year, reduce confusion, etc. Well, I remember the screams from the Big Medical Industry (not from doctors or nurses) and that idea went down the tubes.
One more note why we should remind them. There is simply too much information for a doctor/nurse to absorb, in the journals and studies, too many "specialties or specifics" to know everything, yet we expect them to know all that. I'm fairly sure my podiatrist doesn't need the incontinence reminder, but maybe even the Physical Therapist does, much less the Cardiologist or Neurologist. We can look up a drug, on, say "drugs.com", but that has limits - not sure I've ever seen a non-urology medication listed as being related to incontinence. Anyone have ideas on how to look this issue up?
I have had doctors say, "I don't know. Give me a day or two and I'll look it up and get back to you."
Wish they were all that way!
Snow. Thanks for idea. I'm hoping to see a cardiologist soon as it's been way beyond the recommended interval since last time, & I'll try to remember to specifically ask.
ICGamer: Yeah, and it seems like they make you fill out that questionaire, again, every year or more. But I do sometimes wonder how much attention they give it; all those tiny check boxes, and some forms ask a few questions in "reverse", where "no" means you do have whatever.
We should really try to remind them of the Incontinence.
Then there is the difference in forms from doctor to doctor. Remember when a certain First Lady wanted the Medical Insurance business to standardize the form to one? It was due to save millions a year, reduce confusion, etc. Well, I remember the screams from the Big Medical Industry (not from doctors or nurses) and that idea went down the tubes.
One more note why we should remind them. There is simply too much information for a doctor/nurse to absorb, in the journals and studies, too many "specialties or specifics" to know everything, yet we expect them to know all that. I'm fairly sure my podiatrist doesn't need the incontinence reminder, but maybe even the Physical Therapist does, much less the Cardiologist or Neurologist. We can look up a drug, on, say "drugs.com", but that has limits - not sure I've ever seen a non-urology medication listed as being related to incontinence. Anyone have ideas on how to look this issue up?
I have had doctors say, "I don't know. Give me a day or two and I'll look it up and get back to you."
Wish they were all that way!
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