#TikTok doctor says urinating in the shower is a bad idea

Don’t mention golden showers to this doctor on TikTok.

Dr. Alicia Jeffrey-Thomas posted a video that has since gone viral with her expert opinion that urinating in the shower is not such a great idea.

Jeffrey-Thomas is a doctor of physical therapy and explained in her clip the cons of taking a tinkle in water to her 467,000 TikTok followers.

“If you pee in the shower, or turn on the faucet or turn on the shower and then sit on the toilet to pee while the shower is running, you’re creating an association in the brain between the sound of running water and having to pee,” she said.

The physician added that going number one while showering will create a subconscious connection between hearing running water and peeing. This act could possibly cause “leak issues,” adding that this is worse for those “assigned female at birth” who aren’t “designed to pee standing up.”

“Your pelvic floor isn’t going to relax appropriately, which means that you aren’t really going to be emptying your bladder super well,” Jeffrey-Thomas said.

Some users weren’t having it with the doctor’s explanation and challenged her theory. One TikToker commented, “Conditioning requires positive or negative reinforcement. A stimulus is added prior to the behavior that one wants to encourage, so the stimulus will trigger the action. The stimulus [must] happen before, not during [or after].”

“I will not stop doing it,” another added. “Here I was thinking I was being useful and saving water,” one interjected. “My brain just exploded,” one said. “It makes total sense.”

Another TikToker, Sabrina Baxter, who is also a physical therapist, examined another common urination mistake, claiming in a video that you should only urinate when you really have to go to the restroom. “When you’re about to leave the house and you’re like, ‘I don’t have to pee but I may have to pee so I’m gonna go pee’ … if you do this often, your bladder is never filling up properly,” Baxter said.

She continued, “It’s not filling to full capacity. You’re peeing when it’s halfway full. So you may have the urge to pee more frequently because it’s only filling halfway… You’re essentially sensitizing your body to work at lower volumes than needed.”