Episteme - Compensatory 10th July - Bladder Mystery

Day 4 - Urine

First of all, my apologies for not writing yesterday. I did remember it, but I never actually took it to act upon it, and yesterday was my graduation. And graduation is both celebratory and melancholy, because I got excited so I posted a lot on Insta stories, but then got reminded of how lonely I actually was and proceeded to cry five times last night. I slept at 8 am.

But anyways, that should be for the other blog. On forward. 

Why... bladder mystery?

Okay I swear it's not as weird as it looks.

So today we were out driving, and I really shouldn't have drank as much as I did, but yeah got a full bladder. Held in it. When we finally reached home I went to urinate and made an observation that the stream isn't as natural as when you don't hold it in, and takes about twice the time to release.

So here's a fun fact: all mammals take about the same length of time to urinate - 6 seconds.

And here's the question: why? Why does it come out so slowly? What exactly restrains it? How does the restrainment work, although we already know that and there's a sphincter.

The Bladder Mystery

With all honesty, I can't find the answer. I'm probably not searching with good terms (refer: qualia blogpost, Daniel Dennett section). What I do know though is that holding in the pee causes the muscles to stretch which is why ou can get pelvic cramps. And shamefully enough, I don't know what pelvic cramps are but I think I'm feeling them.

However, holding in pee does increase the risk of urinary tract infections. Which are caused by bacteria. Prolonged holding in pee causes the bladder to increase in size, but this causes urethra to be more open too. Which means more bacteria. And it's a good place for breeding too, since warm. So uhh lesson learnt. Pee.

I found something that could be related to my question though - when you hold it in it's more likely for some urine to get stuck at some parts of your bladder. So you've got to shift positions to like sort of get the pee out until you feel they're all out, which could explain why it takes a longer time. Though my question was more related to the jet of stream and why the diameter feels thinner, I don't know. Can you even answer that?

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Other things learnt:

- The more the bladder is stretched, the more urine it can actually hold. Which makes sense because it is a muscle. Doesn't mean it's good though.

- Nurses frequently hold in their pee, which is why over decades of work their bladder sizes can increase twofold.

- A bladder can hold in 1 to 2 cups of urine

Anyways, once again apologies for this post not being as elaborative as the others. Hopefully I can write something better tonight.

Sources:

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