What Is A Prolapsed Bladder?

Until recently, I had no idea a condition of having a prolapsed bladder even existed until I found out that a female family member recently required “a procedure” to correct it. A prolapsed bladder is when the vaginal walls weaken, causing your bladder to detach from the vaginal walls and travel into the vagina. The main culprits of weakened vaginal walls are childbirth and loss of estrogen during menopause, but heavy lifting and straining from constipation can exacerbate the problem. How serious can a prolapsed bladder get? This particular family member could see her bladder trying to escape. Um, yeah scary stuff.

A prolapsed bladder has four grades of severity from 1 (mild) to 4 (completely out of the body) and I was surprised to find out that most women don’t notice anything wrong until the second stage when they can actually feel a foreign object in the vagina. Some of the symptoms of a prolapsed bladder are: pain in the pelvis, stress incontinence (urinating while coughing or sneezing), pain during intercourse, lower back pain and trouble feeling “done” after urinating. The thing I’ve discovered about a prolapsed bladder, which can lead to other organs detaching such as the uterus, is that it happens gradually over time. Most women don’t even feel what’s happening and there can be only a little discomfort or pain especially if you are menopausal, since so much strange stuff is happening to your body down there anyway.

This is not a condition that will correct itself without medical attention past the mild or moderate stage and should be addressed early if suspected. The earlier the diagnosis, the less invasive the treatment. But ladies, there is something we can all do to help prevent this from happening to us and keep our bladders in place after menopause and that’s right, you guessed it…Kegel’s! As if you needed another reason why you should be doing Kegel’s everyday, the horrific image I have of myself at 60 accidentally sneezing my bladder out of my body is something I can’t get out of my head. Okay, it makes me laugh a little bit too but I swear it’s a scary thought. A high fiber diet and avoiding heavy lifting, and losing weight are also good ways to avoid a prolapsed bladder in the future. But Kegel’s are the best thing you can do.