The Annoyance of Urinary Incontinence

Urinary incontinence usually isn’t a serious condition, but it is a serious pain! No one wants to wonder if they laugh or sneeze that their bladder will leak a little. Urinary incontinence is a common condition in women, especially during and after pregnancy, but it can affect all ages.

Here’s some more information and how we treat it at Women’s Health Medical Group.

What is incontinence?

This is simply loss of bladder control. Some people think it’s just an inevitable irritation that goes with getting older, but that’s not necessarily the case. The severity of a woman’s incontinence can be a slight amount of leakage during a physical stress, such as when coughing. Or it can be severe and so sudden that you can’t make it to a bathroom in time.

There are different types of incontinence

• Stress incontinence — In this form, urine leaks when you exert pressure on your bladder by coughing, sneezing, laughing, exercising, or lifting something heavy.
• Urge incontinence — You have a sudden, intense urge to urinate followed by an involuntary loss of urine. You also may need to urinate often, including throughout the night. This type of incontinence can be due to an infection or more severe causes such as diabetes.
• Overflow incontinence — This form makes the person have frequent or constant dribbling of urine due to a bladder that doesn’t empty completely.
• Functional incontinence — Here it is a physical or mental issue that is causing you to not be able to get to the toilet in time.

Treating incontinence

At Women’s Health Medical Group, we have a wide variety of treatment options to help our patients get past or live with incontinence.

• Behavioral measures — These can include bladder training (where you delay urination when you first feel the urge, eventually trying to last for 2.5 to 3.5 hours). Cutting back on alcohol and caffeine or liquids in general. Double voiding (urinating and then waiting a few minutes and trying again).
• Pelvic floor exercises — These Kegel exercises can be very effective for stress incontinence.
• Medications — We can use various medications to calm overactive bladders or urge incontinence.
• Medical devices — Pessaries are devices that fit into your vagina and provide support to vaginal tissues for women who have had a prolapse. Urethral inserts can be used before specific activities, such as exercise, and they act as plugs.
• Botox — This muscle relaxer famed for wrinkle control can make the bladder muscle relax when you suffer from an overactive bladder.
• Surgery — There are several surgical procedures that can help keep the urethra closed or otherwise support the bladder.

If you’re dealing with urinary incontinence, there’s no reason to simply deal with it. Call us at Women’s Health Medical Group, (817) 346-5336, and we can help.