Does anyone else ever go on trips to the toilet before sitting down to watch a movie, sleeping, or boarding your flight? Well… it’s time to cut the habit out as one doctor revealed that this simple act could harm you in the long run.

In response to a user on TikTok, Pelvic floor physical therapist, Alicia Jeffrey-Thomas, has warned people to NEVER attempt to use the bathroom if they don't actually feel like they have to go.

The TikTok user was claiming that people should always go to the bathroom when they have the chance but Alicia debunked this common misconception, explaining that in doing so, you’re setting yourself up for severe health consequences.

Image Credit: Prima UK​

“Nope! Don’t do that.” she warned.

The doctor shared her expertise in a clip that has now taken TikTok by storm – racking up over five million views in the span of a few days and leaving thousands on the internet shocked.

“Pelvic floor physical therapist here – and I work with a lot of people with overactive bladders, stress incontinence, urge incontinence, the whole nine yards,” she said. “And here's why you shouldn't go ‘just in case.’”

Alicia detailed that there are three levels of feeling like you need to have a wee.

“The first one is just an awareness level that tells you that there's some urine in the bladder,” she said.

“The second one is the one that tells you to make a plan to use the toilet, and the third is kind of the panic button that says, ‘Get me there right now, I'm about to overflow.’”

According to the physical therapist, if you often force yourself to go even when you don’t need to, it can cause long-term damage to your body and eventually leave you struggling to ‘hold it in’.

“If we're going ‘just in case’, it means we're going when [our bladder is in the middle section], so before we actually get an urge to use the toilet,” she continued.

“If we're doing this all the time then our bladder starts getting these data points and says, "OK, maybe we should be sending the signal a little sooner, so let's shift this line down."

“Now, we're going to start getting that urge to go a lot sooner than before. Over time, this compresses those three levels together, so the difference between feeling like there's some urine in your bladder and feeling that panic button like you're about to pee your pants is going to happen in a much shorter amount of time.”

“Avoid the "just in case" unless you're going to be in the car for longer than an hour, once before bed, or before or after sex.”

Image Credit: @thepelvicdancefloor​

Several viewers were taken aback by Alicia's advice and shared their thoughts in the comments section.

“TikTok is basically just a bunch of videos telling me I'm doing life wrong,' joked one person. “Like Jesus, really? I'm peeing wrong?”

“I've never peed in my life. Mind over matter – 74 years strong!” teased a second.

“As a new mom who has been through therapy and still pees whenever I cough really hard, thank you. Instant follow,” added another.

“I always think of your videos when I think I need to go. It’s helpful!” read one more comment.

Others vouched for Alicia's claims with one viewer saying, “Been experiencing this at work lately and you're right.”

“This happened to me, for two years I had false urgency feeling most of the time,” shared someone else. “I had to take medications for three months and now I'm more normal.”

“I work for a pelvic floor physical therapist and this is a fact,” agreed another person.

Several other professionals confirmed that going to the bathroom 'just in case' is indeed harmful to your bladder.

“People sensitize their bladders to go at lower volumes than needed,” Steven A. Kaplan (MD, director of Benign Urologic Diseases and The Men’s Health Program at the Mount Sinai Health System) stated. “It’s hard to get out of that because they’re so used to that.”

“If you keep going ‘just in case’ too often, the bladder never fills up properly, then it shrinks a bit,” gynecologist Elizabeth Farrell revealed. “So then, you do tend to have the feeling that you’re going to have to go more frequently.”

Alicia made a name for herself TikTok, amassing more than 650,000 followers, for regularly sharing advice on how to improve your pelvic floor muscles.

“We’re the sum of our habits over time,” she previously told the Washington Post while discussing the reason why she started sharing healthy urination habits on the platform. “Having good habits and establishing them early on can be protective in a lot of ways.”

She added that people should also refrain from 'forcing every last drop' of urine out of their bodies in an attempt to finish peeing quicker.

“That’s not actually allowing that normal reflex of your pelvic floor relaxing and your bladder contracting to empty,” she clarified. “You’re kind of just creating a lot of intra-abdominal pressure to make things happen.”

And for her final tip, Alicia advised that people should avoid drinking massive amounts of water in one go.

“When it comes to drinking water, it’s also important how you drink your water, more so than it is how much you’re drinking in a day,” she said. “Instead of chugging massive amounts of fluid all at once, try to pace your intake.”

She suggested drinking around 100 millilitres of water every hour and using time marked water bottles to help keep track.

Are you guilty of doing some of these harmful habits? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Want to catch a glimpse of Alicia’s full TikTok video? You may do so here:

Video Credit: @thepelvicdancefloor​

 

[Ricci]

As kids Mum always made us go before we went out anywhere and I must admit I have carried this practice throughout my life. I have noticed, on days when I'm home all day I go far less, maybe only 3 times in a day.