Women struggling with urinary incontinence may feel trapped in a cycle of embarrassment, fear and frustration – it affects nearly one out of every three women over 45.
Stress and urge incontinence treatments include lifestyle modifications, medication and surgery.
Lifestyle Changes
Lifestyle changes may be among the most effective treatment strategies for stress urinary incontinence medically. These changes include decreasing fluid consumption, improving elimination patterns and eating foods that won’t irritate the bladder.
Reduced caffeine, alcohol, and citrus juice intake is also likely to help. These beverages have been known to irritate your bladder and make you urinate more frequently.
Avoid drinking too many liquids directly before engaging in physical activities that could result in leakage, and plan a timed voiding schedule (also called timed voiding).
Changes that improve incontinence don’t have to be complicated or time consuming – they just need a bit of extra thought on your part!
Staying hydrated is also key, and you should keep track of how much fluid is consumed daily. Most adults require approximately 64 ounces, but if your job requires stress relief or long commutes you might require even more water intake.
Exercise can also help alleviate stress incontinence by strengthening your pelvic floor muscles. Furthermore, rest is also key as well as avoiding smoking and excessive alcohol consumption.
Losing weight can help decrease pressure on your bladder, leading to less leakage. Aim for at least 5-10 pounds lost!
Other methods to ease bladder pressure include performing Kegel exercises regularly, avoiding heavy lifting and making frequent use of toilets. Many women find that by practicing these methods for several weeks their urinary leakage will diminish or even completely stop.
Consider keeping a bladder diary to help track when and how often you urinate. Start off by setting an aim of passing urine every 1-2 hours until this becomes routine; gradually extend this frequency until passing urine every 3 to 4 hours is reached.
If you are suffering from stress urinary incontinence, it’s essential that you discuss treatment options with your health care provider immediately. They can formulate an individualized treatment plan tailored specifically to you and your unique requirements.
Pelvic Floor Exercises
Those suffering from stress urinary incontinence may benefit from pelvic floor exercises prescribed by their physician. These exercises strengthen the muscles that support your bladder and urethra to help you control urine output, and may reduce urge incontinence symptoms or the need for pads or special underwear.
If your doctor prescribes pelvic floor exercises, you will need to commit to practicing them on a regular basis. Since doing them correctly can be tricky, for best results speak with a physical therapist who specializes in pelvic floor disorders in order to determine which techniques best suit you and your body.
Step one is identifying your pelvic floor muscles. You can do this by lying down, sitting or standing and relaxing your thighs, bottom and stomach (tummy).
Once you know where they are, gently squeeze them together while visualizing stopping the flow of urine. Perform this exercise several times until it can be completed without strain.
Once you feel a contraction, hold it for several seconds before slowly releasing it. Gradually increase its duration until you can hold for four seconds at once.
Doing these exercises several times daily will strengthen your pelvic floor over time, but results won’t show immediately. To reap maximum benefits from doing these exercises at least three times each day.
There are various approaches to pelvic floor exercises, but what matters most is doing them correctly. Failing to do them as intended will void their benefits altogether.
Doing this exercise starts by lying on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor, lifting buttocks several inches off of the ground and holding them there for 3-8 seconds before resting a bit before doing the exercise again.
If your pelvic floor is weak, start by performing these exercises while lying on your side. Squatting may be challenging to do for women who lack abdominal strength; lying is easier.
Doing this exercise regularly will strengthen and stabilize your pelvic floor, leading to stronger performance in other activities and the greater wellbeing of life overall.
Medication
Your doctor may prescribe medication to reduce symptoms of stress urinary incontinence. These medicines may come in liquid or tablet form and work by decreasing bladder spasms that cause your muscles to tighten up and cause incontinence episodes.
Your provider may suggest making changes to your diet and lifestyle in order to enhance the condition of your bladder, such as cutting back on carbonated, caffeinated, and alcoholic drinks while following fluid schedules – this may help decrease leakage of urine when drinking such beverages and is especially useful if episodes of incontinence arise frequently.
Keep a bladder diary to help your doctor better assess and treat your condition. By monitoring bladder habits, leakage, and fluid intake you can provide your physician with more data for accurate evaluation and diagnosis of treatment plans.
Pelvic floor exercises can also be immensely helpful. By strengthening and retraining the pelvic floor muscles and bladder nerves to control bladder behavior, they provide invaluable assistance for women who have recently given birth vaginally and experience weak pelvic floor muscles as a result. They’re especially beneficial to women postpartum who experience weak pelvic floor muscles as a result.
If the problem persists, your doctor may suggest surgical solutions. These procedures can often be minimally invasive and performed under local anesthesia; meaning no pain will be felt during these processes.
Undergoing surgery to address stress urinary incontinence can be conducted either laparoscopically (through tiny incisions in the abdomen) or openly. There are various techniques available, including colposuspension – which suspends and stitches the bladder neck back onto its original position on front of vagina – available as solutions.
Urethral bulking agents may also help prevent leakage during activity and can help alleviate symptoms; these should only be considered as an extreme last-resort measure if other methods have proven ineffective in providing relief of symptoms.
Important to keep in mind is the complexity of stress incontinence and that no single medical solution can solve all its causes. But you can significantly decrease symptoms and improve quality of life by following a plan provided by a healthcare provider.
Your treatment plan will be tailored specifically to you based on factors like the type of incontinence you suffer from, your age and its root cause. In addition to pelvic floor exercises and other strategies that may be beneficial in managing incontinence and its symptoms.
Surgery
Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a widespread condition that is difficult to manage, affecting one-third of women aged 45 years or over.
There are various treatments available for stress incontinence, but the most effective are typically minimally invasive surgical procedures. They can reduce symptoms associated with stress incontinence while improving quality of life for many patients.
Step one in treating stress incontinence is identifying its source through various tests and examinations, such as keeping a voiding diary, performing urine testing and administering a bladder stress test.
If the source of your incontinence is due to prolapse (a condition that develops in the vaginal area) or weak pelvic floor muscles, surgical treatment could provide relief. Retropubic suspension involves elevating both urethra and bladder neck in the pelvic region so as to relieve pressure from bladder wall.
Mid-urethral sling procedures provide another viable option, employing medical-grade mesh slings under the urethra for support and leakage prevention. This surgery can be carried out on both men and women.
Urethral bulking agents can help prevent urine leakage by thickening the tissue surrounding the urethra through injecting synthetic polysaccharides or gels into its tissues.
Stress urinary incontinence treatment often includes both treatments and lifestyle modifications, including surgery. Physical therapy techniques like biofeedback can strengthen pelvic floor muscles to control leakage; other therapies that may assist include medication, weight loss or diet modifications.
Surgery may be your last option for treating this condition if all other methods have failed. While making this choice can be daunting, your physician can assist in making the best possible choice for your unique situation.
Before opting for surgery, make sure that the surgeon is an experienced specialist and understands your condition. Discuss with your physician your expectations as well as potential risks and complications of surgery with them as part of the preop period. Likewise, ensure all members of the surgical team know your name as they must become familiar with your records, imaging studies and informed-consent form in order to perform effectively during operation.