Ok hold your Urine, I’m getting to the Safety Message!
P bar Y Safety Consultants

Ok hold your Urine, I’m getting to the Safety Message!

Admit it, we all have a habit of holding our pee until we are ready to let it go. SO WHY OH WHY IS THIS A SAFETY PROBLEM, well here is the yellow area of the topic!

And by the way a note to my ELEMENTARY and Junior High Teachers, we in Safety were right again!

Even when our brain is telling us to go to the bathroom to release, we often disregard it especially when we are in the middle of doing an activity that we can’t stop or pause. Just like when we are in an important meeting, a deadline to beat, a traffic jam, a ceremony our heart can’t leave or watch our fave show on the television. We do a bad habit of holding our pee. The bladder is a hybrid of the two, called a "muscular sac," which makes sense. We aren’t born knowing how to control our bladder (see: diapers), but with teaching and practice, we get the hang of it,

But all it takes is one whiz to open up the floodgates, and before you know it, you’re returning to the bar bathroom every 20 minutes.

Normal urine color ranges from pale yellow to deep amber — the result of a pigment called urochrome and how diluted or concentrated the urine is. Pigments and other compounds in certain foods and medications may change your urine color.

The reason you can’t stop yourself after that first pee is because the relief of urinating sends feel-good signals to your brain,

But for how long can and we should hold it? Is it too bad to hold our pee? What will happen if we delay it longer?

It might not feel like it, but the adult bladder can hold as much as half a litre (2 cups)  and for the Canadians in the group, As we consume foods and liquids our bladders begin to fill up, holding anywhere from 50 to 500 milliliters of urine before we feel the urge to relieve ourselves of pee before you'll feel the need to 'go'. Your body knows how much is in there because your bladder wall is filled with tiny receptors that send a message to your brain when the bladder reaches capacity. Fortunately, most of us have full control over our bladder function, so when we receive this message, we can choose to either relieve ourselves right away, or hold it because it's a really long way to the bathroom from the couch. But what exactly are we doing to our body when we hold all that pee in? The bladder is made of muscular and elastic tissue, and the fuller the bladder, the more the elastic tissue stretches. When it’s finally time to let loose, the brain signals the inhibitory nerves that it’s fine to squeeze, emptying your bladder (and triggering an “aah,” if there was an especially long line).

That once you've made the decision that you're too busy to pee right now, the cylindrical sphincters in your bladder close up tightly to keep all of the urine from leaking through your urethra. These little muscles are great at what they do, until you make them do it consistently for a really long time, say if you're a trucker and you're holding in your pee on long trips several times a week. In those long-term cases, the elastic tissue can become damaged and eventually replaced by scar tissue. The need to go to the bathroom is completely natural, which is why we need to do it with a certain frequency so that our bodies can eliminate all of the excess and waste product that it doesn’t need.

If you make a habit of holding in your pee for ages, you're subjecting yourself to pretty serious long-term effects, including a higher risk of infection. And constantly holding in your pee can weaken your bladder muscles, which could lead to urinary retention - the dreaded condition that prevents you from being able to fully empty your bladder when you pee, which means you feel like peeing a lot. Peeing anywhere between four and ten times a day is normal, but if you feel like you're practically living in the bathroom, there are a few things you can do. For one, try drinking less alcohol. It's a diuretic (meaning it makes you pee more than you take in), so even if you go right before leaving the bar, it can still come back to haunt you.

Holding in large amounts of urine for an extended period of time also exposes your body to potentially harmful bacteria, which can increase your chances of getting a urinary tract infection (UTI) or bladder infection. Nix the coffee or soft drinks before a long commute or suspenseful film. Caffeine affects certain receptors in the bladder wall, making your bladder contract more at lower volumes

All of which sounds pretty bad, but not exactly life-threatening, right? Well, you're just not trying hard enough.

Still holding it in THINK ABOUT THIS ONE!

“A young worker came in who had gotten totally drunk the night before and passed out,”. “His bladder was holding the equivalent of about three bottles of wine and it became over distended, like a floppy bag.”

After that, the patient was never able to urinate normally again and had to stick a catheter in his penis four to six times a day,.

If you hold it in to avoid public restrooms, for example, you could be more likely to develop long-term urinary tract symptoms like frequent and painful urination.

When you gotta go, you gotta go -- and for your health, that's an important thing to keep in mind. Kidney stones

People who are prone to the development of kidney stones and who, for whatever reason, hold their pee, should pay heavy attention because the consequences of kidney stones can be much worse. Kidney stones are tiny “stones” that form in the kidneys from excess sodium or calcium, and if these mineral deposits are not regularly expelled via the urine, the moment will come in which the stones try to leave the body via the urinary tract and the pain that this movement produces will be unbearable.

Cystitis

This is a problem that primarily affects women, and has to do with the inflammation of the walls of the bladder, most commonly called cystitis. Its primary symptoms are:

·        Pain in the pelvis

·        Burning and pain while urinating

While the treatment for bladder infections is a fairly simple antibiotic routine, untreated bladder infections may lead to more severe outcomes, including kidney damage or bacterial bloodstream infection (bacteremia). Bacteria in the bloodstream can be dangerous because it has a strong association with sepsis, which can be deadly. 

One of the primary reasons that it is always recommended to consume enough liquids is that it aids the important function of cleaning the kidneys, which can really only be performed via nothing more and nothing less than the regular expulsion via urine of the water that we drink, and with it the residues that the body no longer needs and that, furthermore, can even cause a whole host of other problems.

Adverse effects

As we have already mentioned, holding your pee can cause many adverse effects such as:

·        Constant and strong pain when urinating

·        Fever, caused by the effect of the bacteria present in urine that were not properly expelled from the body.

·        Shivers

·        Stomach pains

·        Cramps

·        Anxiety

·        Difficulty concentrating on anything other than the desire to pee

As you may have already noticed, there are many health problems that you can avoid by simply heading to the bathroom as soon as your body informs you of the need, and paying attention to your body’s signals regarding the same.

We hope that this advice will help you take better care to maintain your bladder free of harmful residues and to keep your kidney in perfect conditions. You should always remember that these are both some of the most important organs in our bodies, and it would be very irresponsible on our parts to neglect them and risk serious health complications just for the sake of not having to leave our work area for a moment and look for the bathroom.

When sitting in a meeting or trying to get through emails, the thought of nature calling probably isn't one of your priorities. Or rather, it might be top of mind, but you feel embarrassed using the office bathroom. Experts tell us, however, that taking care of our kidneys means knowing when they're entering the danger zone.

An average bladder has the capacity to hold about 15 ounces of liquid (eight glasses of water, for example, is roughly 64 ounces), and holding in your urine for a long period of time can stretch your bladder. The automatic feedback mechanism in the bladder sends a signal to the brain when it's full, which then urges you to get to the nearest toilet. But if you keep yourself from peeing often, your body might lose the ability to know when it's time to go. And that's not the only concern.

"The longer you hold your urine, the bladder can become a breeding ground for bacteria to grow," This bacteria can lead to infections, which can spread to kidneys and cause greater damage to the body.

However, sometimes it really can be difficult to find the time to go. School teachers and crane operators are two professions who often use the washroom fewer times than other occupations, according to urologist.

Women are more likely to hold their urine due to hygiene concerns -- and let's face it ladies, sometimes finding that seat cover or squatting over a public toilet is more of a pain than it's worth.

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