What happens if a woman holds her urine?

People hold urine for various reasons, but whether men or women, holding urine is a bad habit. If you need to hold urine for a short period of time due to some special reasons, it is understandable, but it must not be necessary for a long time, otherwise it will have a great impact on your health. For example, if women hold urine for a long time, it will cause the following hazards.

What happens if a woman holds her urine?

Urinary incontinence

Unlike men, women do not have two internal and external sphincters. They only rely on a single sphincter to hold urine. Therefore, if they hold urine for a long time, the sphincter will become fatigued and weak, leading to urinary incontinence. In addition, holding urine can cause long-term damage to the bladder detrusor muscle and accelerate aging. Especially for some elderly women, who have relatively poor resistance, holding urine causes the bladder to be highly full, which reduces the ability of the bladder mucosa to resist infection and makes urinary tract inflammation very likely to occur.

Bladder damage

Holding urine frequently can easily lead to damage to bladder function. This is because in the process of holding urine, the bladder continues to expand in order to store urine, and the blood vessels on the bladder wall are compressed. If this continues for a long time, it can easily lead to ischemia of the bladder mucosa, thereby affecting the normal function of the bladder. If you force yourself to hold your urine for a long time, the urine in your bladder will continue to increase. When the amount exceeds the tolerance of the bladder smooth muscle, it will cause the bladder to rupture.

Retroverted uterus

Because the female internal reproductive organs and the bladder "live together" in the pelvic cavity and have a "close" relationship, and the uterus is located behind the bladder, holding urine will cause the bladder to fill, and the full bladder will compress the uterus, causing it to tilt backwards.

Dysmenorrhea

If you often hold your urine, the retroverted uterus will be difficult to reposition. When the bladder severely presses on the uterus, it will hinder the outflow of menstrual blood and can cause severe dysmenorrhea symptoms.

Insomnia

I feel the urge to urinate at night but don't want to get up. But if I hold it in I'm afraid the urine will come out involuntarily, so I'm under a lot of mental stress. Moreover, people usually cannot fall asleep when they hold their urine, which can easily lead to insomnia in the long run. Neurologists point out that habitually holding urine can easily induce psychogenic enuresis. When you hear the sound of water or see a toilet, you will develop an inertial urge to urinate.

Inability to urinate

Due to the long-term habit of holding urine, the contraction ability of the bladder will weaken and become loose and powerless, so problems such as urinary incontinence and slow urination will occur. The long-term habit of holding urine will make you feel that every urination is not complete. If you only hold your urine occasionally, the elasticity of your muscles will recover quickly. However, if you hold your urine frequently or the elasticity of your muscles cannot be restored, you may even experience urinary incontinence and frequent urination, always feeling like you want to go to the toilet but not being able to urinate. Furthermore, if you have been holding it in for a while, you may feel a painful sensation when you urinate immediately. This is because the over-full bladder has compressed the nerves in the bladder that control the urination system, which may cause permanent damage to the nerves and aggravate the pain of not being able to urinate completely.

Damage to nerves

If you develop the habit of holding your urine, you will experience lower abdominal pain, frequent urination, and a feeling of incomplete urination when urinating. This is because the over-full bladder compresses the nerves in the bladder that control urination. In more serious cases, it can also cause urinary incontinence.

Kidney failure

Some people will experience urine reflux during acute cystitis. When the bacteria-laden urine flows back into the kidneys, it may cause acute pyelonephritis and hydronephritis, which will not only affect the function of the kidneys, but may also lead to renal failure or even dialysis in the future.

Cause bacterial infection

Under normal circumstances, the urinary system has a self-cleaning effect on the human body and can excrete most of the metabolic waste in the body. However, when you hold your urine, the bladder will gradually expand and compress the blood vessels in the bladder wall, causing ischemia of the bladder mucosa and reduced resistance. At this time, bacteria will be more likely to take advantage of the situation and enter, easily causing urinary system diseases such as cystitis and urethritis. In severe cases, it will also affect kidney function.