Urinary Incontinence

Urinary Incontinence happens when you lose control of your bladder. It can happen anytime but is more common in individual’s over 50 years of age. A urinary leak can happen with coughing or sneezing. Sometimes the urges are so strong, that you start running to the restroom. What’s more important though is that, these problems can be severe and can put you in an embarrassing situation. Either way, that is the last thing you want to happen, especially when you are dealing with something important. Incontinence issues affect men and women equally and numerous large-scale studies have found that incontinence is especially more common beyond 50 years of age.

If you are suffering from a leaky urinary bladder do not hesitate to get a treatment

What are the types of urinary incontinence?

Interestingly, there are different types of urinary incontinence. Lets briefly define them…

1.  URGE INCONTINENCE: Here you have a sudden and severe urge to urinate. You are not able to get to a bathroom in time and suddenly you lose voluntary control over your urine. You may urinate multiple times in the night when you are suffering from stress incontinence
2.  STRESS INCONTINENCE: Stress incontinence specifically occurs with a certain type of activities, for example, you may suddenly lose control of your bladder while coughing or sneezing.
3. OVERFLOW INCONTINENCE: Overflow incontinence is characterized by a constant dribbling of urine. Overflow incontinence occurs when you do not completely empty your bladder.
4. MIXED INCONTINENCE: Here two or more types of incontinence may co-exist together.

Either way, a urinary incontinence treatment should be tailored to an individual depending on the primary cause. Now let us move one to the various causes of urinary incontinence.

Urinary Incontinence Causes:

The most common causes of urinary incontinence include

1. The weakening of the bladder muscles with rising age
2. Prostate enlargement
3. Pregnancy, childbirth, and surgeries that involve the female reproductive system
4. Kidney stones, bladder stones, and urinary tract infections
5. Use of certain medications and drugs

Moreover, certain risk factors can increase your chances for developing an incontinence issue. These include obesity and the consumption of alcohol combined with too much intake of caffeinated drinks.

Urinary incontinence treatment options

The truth is urinary incontinence treatment options should be strictly tailored to the primary cause of the problem.
Either way, when you first visit your doctor with an incontinence issue, he will first prescribe a few basic tests like

1. Urine routine
2. CBC and USG Abdomen
3. TRUS (transrectal ultrasound)
4. Blood sugars
5. Lastly Cystoscopy – The idea of doing a cystoscopy is to see whether there is an actual problem in the bladder itself.

Urinary incontinence treatment includes

1. Bladder retraining
2. Double Voiding techniques
3. Lifestyle and dietary modifications
4. Lastly pelvic floor physiotherapy.

The choice of urinary incontinence treatment ultimately depends on the cause of the problem. Where the incontinence is due to a prostate enlargement or a kidney stone, necessary medical or surgical treatment of the same has to be done.

At our urology hospital in chennai, we routinely see patients presenting to us a with a prostate enlargement as one of the leading causes of urinary incontinence.