Diet and bladder control

Many people don’t realize it but as they age theirbladders become more sensitive to some foods andbeverages. I can guess what some of you are thinking.“Oh, now shes’s going to tell me to give up coffee ortea.” Well, it’s not that simple. 

Determining the impactof diet on bladder activity and deciding which dietaryhanges will be helpful is sometimes a challengingpuzzle to solve.

Most people have potential bladder irritants intheir diets. For some people these substances createproblems and for others there is little or no effect onbladder control. There’s a range of sensitivity fordifferent people. What about your bladder?

Perhaps  you have an extremely sensitive bladder and eliminating
irritants from your diet would help a great deal.

Or perhaps your bladder is just a bit sensitive to a fewthings and all you need to do is reduce your intake ofthem for better bladder control. How do you determinethis?

I suggest you do some dietary testing. This may make bladder training immensely easier for you.

It will onlytake a few weeks and may yield information that willhelp you for the rest of your life. This chapter willdiscuss the rationale for testing these foods. Then youwill use the bladder activity charts, followingthe instructions in the next chapter to actually test theI Don’t Gotta Go dietwhile you also begin theMindOver Bladdertraining.

Here’s a brief description of how the process of dietary testing works.

The Food Testing Process

  • During Week 1 you will eat and drink the way you normally do, except be sure to have at least two quarts of fluid each day. Your fluid intake includes soups and non-caffeinated beverages. At least one quart should be plain water. 

The first step is to find out foods and/or beverages irritate your bladder. To do this you will start by taking a baseline reading of your bladder’s activity for a full week while you eat and drink as you usually do.

  • During Week 2 you will eliminate the primary bladder irritants listed abovve from your diet as you continue recording bladder activity. 

You can use the Bladder Fitness Bladder Activity Charts
to chart your bladder activity during this process.

The Most Common Bladder Irritants:

  • Caffeinated Beverages:  coffee, tea, decaf coffee and tea, cola drinks, cocoa 
  • Spices:  ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce, pepper, chilies,
    pickles, vinegar     
  • Acidic Foods:  citrus fruits and juices ( oranges, lemons,
    limes, grapefruits), pineapple, cranberries and cranberry
    juice, tomatoes and tomato products, strawberries, apples
    and apple juice, guava, kiwi, peaches, plums, onions,
    cantaloupes, grapes, rhubarb, rosehips, hibiscus, cinnamon     
  • Spiced Meats:  salami, bologna, corned beef, pastrami, hotdogs, sausage, luncheon meats 
  • Others:  whole milk and whole milk products, alcohol, carbonated drinks, chocolate, aspartame, saccharine 

 Some suggestions to try during the diet days:

  • Pero or Postum or Kava or Caffix instead of coffee 
  • Herbal teas that don’t contain citrus, rosehips, hibiscus or cinnamon 
  • Ovaltine instead of chocolate drinks 
  • Fruits: bananas, ripe pears, canned fruit 
  • Fruit Juices: papaya juice, pear nectar, apricot nectar 
  • Fructose as found in SUPEROSE instead of NutraSweet or 
  • Saccharine 
  • Carob instead of chocolate in recipes 
  • Meats: just stay away from the spiced and processed meats 
The differences in bladder activity during these first two weeks will then suggest whether or not foods significantly effect your bladder.

You’ll look for differences in the following:

• How often you urinated each day?

• How long you could wait between toiletings?

• How easy it was to calm down urge?

• How many accidents you had each day?

• How bad those accidents were?

When you compare your bladder activity during Week 1 and Week 2, do you see any differences?

If foods and beverages don’t bother your bladder, there will be no discernible differences in bladder activity during the two weeks. You will have average toileting frequency (every three to four hours) and average voiding volumes (ten to fourteen ounces) during both weeks. If this is the case, you do not need to do any more diet testing.

You can resume eating and drinking as you normally do, learn the Mind Over Bladder techniques and do the Twitch and Shout exercises.

However, if you compare the charts for Week 1 and Week 2 and you see that there are differences in bladder activity when you eliminate the bladder irritants from your food intake, then bladder irritants might be a part of your problem.

Please realize that this is not an exact science. Answers are clear cut for some people but for others, it takes more investigative work before a pattern becomes clear. If the results suggest that some foods do irritate your bladder, the next step will be to determine which specific foods and/or beverages are problems for you.

You will need to do careful observation of your bladder’s activity during the next weeks as you test the impact different foods have on your bladder. Then you will need to determine if you need to decrease consumption of some things or if you need to completely avoid some.

In Week 3 to Week 6 you‘ll test different foods and beverages using a separate bladder activity chart for each week. You will record bladder activity as you add foods back into your diet testing each food or beverage for three days. You will watch for changes in bladder activity.

If you have increased frequency, urgency or leakage when you eat or drink something, you are probably correct to assume that it irritates your bladder. Using the Bladder Fitness charts to help determine if any symptoms return with each item you reintroduce into your diet.

Tallying the number of toiletings and accidents each day will give you a measurement of how your bladder reacts to these different foods.

During Week 7 and Week 8 you will continue recording bladder activity as you put everything together into new toileting exercise habits and diet.

Mind Over Bladder training, stronger muscles from the Twitch and Shout exercise program and reduced bladder irritation from the I Don’t Gotta Go diet will enable you control your bladder, extending the time between toiletings until normal voiding frequency and continence are achieved.

Most people who have urge or mixed incontinence find that learning to control the bladder using Mind Over Bladder techniques is easier if they eliminate irritating substances from their diets for at least a few weeks. After the bladder is well-trained, foods are added back into the diet. Increased urgency can then be controlled because you trained the bladder during the diet days.

One of the friends reading through the manuscript of this booklet asked a couple of questions, trying to clarify this idea of food testing.