I’ve got a cough and I keep wetting myself!

[Crouchingdragonhiddentiger]

I’m only 35 so I didn’t expect my bladder to be this weak just yet.

I’ve got a nasty cough following a flu like illness and everytime I cough (which is fairly forceful) I end up wetting myself! I’ve been wearing sanitary towels and I keep having to change my knickers, but I feel like I’m too young for these issues?

Has anyone else had similar?

After having DS at 36 my pelvic floor has never been the same 😂 try doing some pelvic floor exercises to strengthen it. Getting older really is shit 😕

If it’s the same bug I had, I was the same. The cough was a hacking cough, and I almost retched at times.

Nothing worse most the time despite kids I am okay but coughs and sneezing hard always makes me wet myself. Obviously if you are out pads but a few years ago I was in bed and got fed up having to keep changing sheet when I coughed. in the end I got an old bath sheet folded several times and lay my bum on that. much better you can refold if needs be hot wash all ok but its one of the dogs towels anyway

I get this whenever I have a cough for more than 2.5 weeks. No issues with bladder weakness the rest of the time - I'd happily get on a trampoline! It is frustrating but one of those things I think.

Yes - prolonged cough due to chest infection in late 30s.

Get some proper tena lady stuff for now and when better do pelvic floor exercises - not had it since yet and in late 40s now.

Wear period pants?

I've got the same cough, almost 4 weeks in and I feel like absolute shit. Started with flu like symptoms and the cough won't budge.
Thankfully I don't have the peeing myself issues but I do have a womb/bowel prolapse so it certainly won't be helping that 😭

I’ve got this cough too. Just been prescribed antibiotics which I try to avoid, but I’m not sleeping and I’m waking DH and kids up too (even in other rooms!)

Yes I’ve had one or two tiny leaks but no more and only in the middle of the night coughing half asleep. I’m mid 40s and have done a lot of Pilates and weights in the past couple of years, it has made a huge difference especially the Pilates.

Sanitary towels won't help you, they're suitable for discharge and periods. You need incontinence underware/pads. Nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about! Just keep up with pelvic floor exercises and speak to your doctor.

This won’t help you now/ for this cough but I have lost 6 stones in weight over the past year and any incontinence issues I had have gone. Don’t think the extra weight was helping and once that was gone, the problem rectified.
this of course may not be relevant for you.

I get this practically every time I have a bad cough (which thankfully isn't very often!). I am quite a bit older than you (61) and only had one child. I obviously wasn't rigorous enough about my pelvic floor exercises. I've found the only way to deal with it is to use a high absorbency sanitary towel,and to make sure I always have a spare one in my bag when I go out.

I have the cough from hell too and have discovered Tena. Waiting for a chest x ray now. I had no symptoms until early December when I started with whatever hideous virus was going around and since then I've not got rid of it properly. Just finished antibiotics which didn't do much

I had pneumonia in April last year (I’m 31) and my pelvic floor completely went and I was wetting myself every time I coughed. Had a week wearing incontinence pads and then was back to normal once I started to heal.
my body was just so weak from the illness.

Not at all an instant fix, but weightlifting means you have to engage your core (including pelvic floor).

It really makes a difference, my pelvic floor has never been so good since I started lifting. You should see results in ~2 months if you can do 3x 30 mins/week. And you get toned but you won't bulk up.
I used to have similar with strong sneezing fits, but absolutely fine now.

Given you're only 35, would strongly recommend getting into it as that effect absolutely is reversible!

I get this and I'm only mid forties with no children (and exercise regularly). I was also surprised.

You can get a little tens machine for this on Amazon for around £60.
https://amzn.eu/d/fxbwJmq

Get incontinence pads, Lidl has them very reasonably priced. It's common with coughs

I'm mid forties (2 dc) and this happened to me when I had a chest infection a couple of years ago. It was quite a shock! It went away when the cough did though. 🙂

I did, when just a bit older than you, after a nasty case of flu. Muscles were so affected by so much coughing that I wasn’t just leaking every time I coughed or sneezed, I was farting, too!

It did pass. Can’t remember now long it took, but IIRC it was weeks rather than months.
In the meantime, get yourself some little Always pads or something.

Yes me too sadly. I've had a cough for best part of a month. I'm mid forties with 1 DC.

One cough and it's a little bit of wee, two coughs or more and it starts a deluge😳

Yes, I had dd by cesarean but for some reason still have this problem

Every time I throw up (and I do a lot due to gallstones ) i pee loads, even if my bladder is empty

Bladder is so weak. Dd can hold urine in all day and I used to be the same

Doing my kegals as I scroll now

Im 38 and since my 20s if i cough sneeze laugh i pee a bit,
Been to the gp nothing wrong i do pelvic excise that helps.
Just ike to say its not a lot of pee when it happens (about a hundred times a day).
And ive no kids.

Baffled to see so many people saying this is normal and 'just one of those things'. It absolutely shouldn't be, I'd be seeing the doctor ASAP if this happened to me. Or a pelvic floor physio.

In my 30's, had a terrible non-stop hacking cough that was like a previous poster described, where I was often retching/gagging from the force that I was coughing with. It got to about 2 months of this going on (I even very painfuly cracked a couple of ribs at one point, too), this was a few years ago now, but the same thing was happening with me, really embarrassing to happen, obviously 😳.

Once the cough settled down and started to go away, the incontinence went away too. I think the force and frequency of the coughing just temporarily absolutely shot my pelvic floor muscles.