Forms Of Urinary Incontinence That Affect Men Only
- Benign prostatic hyperplasia affects about 50 percent of men over the age of 60, and 90 percent over the age of 85 an enlarged prostate can cause sudden and frequent urges to urinate.
- Peyronies disease is the result of injury or damage to penile tissue, causing an abnormal curvature.
- Painful inflammation of the prostate gland
What The Doctor Does
Doctors first ask questions about the person’s symptoms and medical history. Doctors then do a physical examination. What they find during the history and physical examination often suggests a cause of the incontinence and the tests that may need to be done.
Doctors ask questions about the circumstances of urine loss, including amount, time of day, and any precipitating factors . People are asked whether they can sense the need to urinate and, if so, whether the sensation is normal or comes with sudden urgency. Doctors may also ask the person to estimate the amount of urine leakage. Doctors will also ask whether the person has any additional problems with urination, such as pain or burning during urination, a frequent need to urinate, difficulty starting urination, or a weak urine stream.
Sometimes doctors may ask people to keep a record of their urination habits over a day or two. This record is called a voiding diary. Each time the person urinates, the volume and time are recorded. After an episode of incontinence, the person also records any related activities, especially eating, drinking, drug use, or sleep.
Although urodynamic testing is important, results do not always predict response to drug treatment or assess the relative importance of multiple causes.
When Should I See A Doctor About Incontinence
Its important to know that incontinence can be treated. Many people believe that its something that just goes along with aging and is an unavoidable issue. If you find that incontinence is disturbing your daily activities and causing you to miss out on things you typically enjoy, talk to your healthcare provider. There are a wide range of options to treat incontinence.
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Types Of Urinary Incontinence
Stress incontinence In stress incontinence, pressure is placed on the bladder from lifting heavy objects, exercising, laughing, sneezing, and coughing. This usually causes leakage of various severity, depending on how bad your problem is. It is common in young and middle-aged women that are postmenopausal.
Urge incontinence Urge incontinence is also called overactive bladder. Your bladder suddenly and inappropriately contacts, giving you an urge to urinate but you cant hold your urine long enough to make it to the toilet on time. Urinary tract infection is a common cause, especially in the elderly. It can also be caused by medical conditions like diabetes or a neurological disorder.
Overflow incontinence With this type of incontinence, urine leaks from a bladder that doesnt empty adequately because of medical conditions that wont allow it to drain properly like urinary stones, tumors, scar tissue, enlarged prostate , diabetes, and spinal cord injuries.
Mixed incontinence This problem arises when you have more than one type of urinary incontinence, which can be a combination of any of the above three categories. Mixed incontinence is typically more challenging to diagnose and treat.
Functional incontinence This incontinence is caused by a medical condition like arthritis or anything else that interferes with your ability to get to the bathroom quickly and toilet properly upon arrival.
Stick To A Healthy Diet
To prevent UI, be careful about your food choices. In several studies, urinary leakage has been tied to symptoms of obesity. One study found that men with metabolic syndrome have larger prostates, a leading cause of UI. Men with both metabolic syndrome and enlarged prostates bear an 80% greater risk of experiencing a sudden, intense urge to urinate, often during the night.
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What Can You Do To Relieve Urinary Incontinence
Urinary incontinence almost never goes away on its own. But there are steps you can take to help relieve your symptoms.
Alleviating urinary incontinence starts with understanding which type of incontinence youre experiencing and whats causing it, says Dr. Lindo. A specialist such as a urogynecologist can help provide those answers for you, as well as help you understand which behavior modifications and other treatments will be most effective for alleviating your incontinence.
Weight loss almost always helps relieve urinary incontinence because it reduces the amount of pressure being placed on your pelvic floor. In fact, losing just 5 percent of your weight can improve your urinary symptoms by up to 70 percent.
Similarly, pelvic floor exercises, such as Kegels, can help reduce symptoms of either type of incontinence. In the case of stress incontinence, pelvic floor exercises are a way to restrengthen your weakened muscles. For urge incontinence, these exercises can help calm and retrain your bladder.
For women experiencing stress incontinence after childbirth, sometimes weight loss and postnatal pelvic floor exercises are all it takes for symptoms to resolve over time, adds Dr. Lindo.
Depending on the type of incontinence youre experiencing, your doctor may suggest trying additional modifications.
Behavioral modifications for stress incontinence:
- Weight loss
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Pelvic Floor Muscle Exercises
Your doctor may recommend that you do these exercises frequently to strengthen the muscles that help control urination. Also known as Kegel exercises, these techniques are especially effective for stress incontinence but may also help urge incontinence.
To do pelvic floor muscle exercises, imagine that you’re trying to stop your urine flow. Then:
- Tighten the muscles you would use to stop urinating and hold for five seconds, and then relax for five seconds.
- Work up to holding the contractions for 10 seconds at a time.
- Aim for at least three sets of 10 repetitions each day.
To help you identify and contract the right muscles, your doctor may suggest that you work with a pelvic floor physical therapist or try biofeedback techniques.
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An Extremely Common Condition
Sorry to report this, but postpartum urinary incontinence is quite common. According to the latest research, women who give birth vaginally are more likely to experience these complications afterward. In some cases, issues of urinary incontinence can last up to a year, and smaller percentages of women are still living symptoms after 5 years.
Contributing factors include the fact that the bladder and pelvis muscles are weakened during childbirth. In addition, the uterus will begin to shrink back to its normal size, which causes repeated compressions on the bladder. Rapid changes in hormones also need to be considered as the body attempts to balance its female sex hormones after a child is born. Women over the age of 35 and those who are obese are also at a greater risk for urinary incontinence following childbirth.
All together, these influential factors lead women to face a much higher risk for urinary incontinence. The good news is that most women can recover with the proper precautions and effective treatment options recommended by Dedicated to Women.
Urinary Incontinence In Older Adults
Urinary incontinence means a person leaks urine by accident. While it can happen to anyone, urinary incontinence, also known as overactive bladder, is more common in older people, especially women. Bladder control issues can be embarrassing and cause people to avoid their normal activities. But incontinence can often be stopped or controlled.
What happens in the body to cause bladder control problems? Located in the lower abdomen, the bladder is a hollow organ that is part of the urinary system, which also includes the kidneys, ureters, and urethra. During urination, muscles in the bladder tighten to move urine into the tube-shaped urethra. At the same time, the muscles around the urethra relax and let the urine pass out of the body. When the muscles in and around the bladder dont work the way they should, urine can leak, resulting in urinary incontinence.
Incontinence can happen for many reasons, including urinary tract infections, vaginal infection or irritation, or constipation. Some medications can cause bladder control problems that last a short time. When incontinence lasts longer, it may be due to:
Most incontinence in men is related to the prostate gland. Male incontinence may be caused by:
- Prostatitis, a painful inflammation of the prostate gland
- Injury or damage to nerves or muscles from surgery
- An enlarged prostate gland, which can lead to benign prostate hyperplasia, a condition in which the prostate grows as men age
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Surgical Procedures For When Enough Is Enough
If you have chronic or severe urinary incontinence, you may ultimately require surgery to correct the problem. This is usually reserved as a treatment of last resort to correct incontinence that has not responded to previous medical treatments or serious medical conditions such as prostate cancer.
1. Surgery to help stress incontinence in women is often aimed at repairing tissues that provide bladder support. Pregnancy is a common cause of dropped bladder. For less severe stress incontinence cases, a sling procedure may be used to reposition the urethra.
2. Surgery is also available to help men with urge and overflow incontinence due to prostate problems. Transurethral resection of the prostate removes tissue pressing on the urethra and allows the urine to flow more freely. Prostate cancer may require the removal of the prostate , primarily to treat the cancer as well as improve urine flow.
Here is a video on urinary incontinence from Mercyhealth by Urogynecologist Dr. Sonya Ephraim.
Medicine For Stress Incontinence
If stress incontinence does not significantly improve with lifestyle changes or exercises, surgery will usually be recommended as the next step.
However, if you’re unsuitable for surgery or want to avoid an operation, you may benefit from an antidepressant medicine called duloxetine. This can help increase the muscle tone of the urethra, to help keep it closed.
You’ll need to take duloxetine tablets twice a day and will be assessed after 2 to 4 weeks to see if the medicine is beneficial or causing any side effects.
Possible side effects of duloxetine can include:
- nausea
- constipation
Do not suddenly stop taking duloxetine, as this can also cause unpleasant side effects. A GP will reduce your dose gradually.
Duloxetine is not suitable for everyone, however, so a GP will discuss any other medical conditions you have to determine if you can take it.
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What Are The Symptoms Of Urinary Incontinence
The main symptom of urinary incontinence is the leakage of urine. There may also be increased urgency to wee, leading to increased frequency of weeing. Urinary tract infections may also develop more often and be hard to shift. Children may be reluctant to drink fluids in case they have an accident this can lead to dehydration and often makes any constipation worse as well.
What Steps Can I Take At Home To Treat Urinary Incontinence
Your doctor or nurse may suggest some things you can do at home to help treat urinary incontinence. Some people do not think that such simple actions can treat urinary incontinence. But for many women, these steps make urinary incontinence go away entirely, or help leak less urine. These steps may include:
You can also buy pads or protective underwear while you take other steps to treat urinary incontinence. These are sold in many stores that also sell feminine hygiene products like tampons and pads.
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Home Remedies For Utis
Along with antibiotic use, some individuals have found relief with:
Vitamin C.Studies suggest Vitamin C increases the acidity of the urine to kill off bacteria. Vitamin C can be found in fruits and vegetables like red peppers, oranges, and kiwis.
Probiotics. Probiotics can promote a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut with beneficial microorganisms. Lactobacillus is a common probiotic strain that has been linked to preventing UTIs. Probiotics are found in supplements, yogurt, kefir, and some cheeses.
Cranberry. Cranberry has also been shown to prevent urinary tract infections. Research shows that cranberry aids in preventing bacterial binding to host cell surface membranes in the urinary tract, limiting the ability for the bacteria to stick to the walls of the bladder, which causes infection. Concentrated cranberry capsules, as opposed to cranberry juice, are recommended. 300mg-400mg twice daily is the recommended dose.
Treatment For Stress Incontinence
There are three main treatments for stress incontinence.
- Pelvic floor muscle training . Your pelvic floor muscles help to control your bladder and bowel. Strengthening and toning these using exercises can sometimes help stress incontinence. A specialist pelvic health physiotherapist can show you how to do these exercises. You’ll need to do them three times a day for three months to see if they help. If you have problems tightening your pelvic floor muscles, using biofeedback or electrical stimulation may help. Biofeedback is when sensors placed on your skin or in your vagina send signals to a monitor when you squeeze your pelvic floor muscles. This can help to show you how well youre doing the exercises. Electrical stimulation uses an electrical current to stimulate your pelvic floor muscles. It involves having a small electrical probe placed in your vagina.
- Medicines. Your doctor may offer you medicine for stress urinary incontinence if your first treatments dont work and you prefer not to have surgery. Theyll talk to you about the possible side-effects and review you after four weeks to see if the medicine is working.
- Surgery. Your doctor may suggest surgery for stress incontinence if other treatments havent helped. The different types of surgery are described below.
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How Do You Fix Female Incontinence
Lifestyle changes to manage incontinence
Posterior Tibial Nerve Stimulation
Your posterior tibial nerve runs down your leg to your ankle. It contains nerve fibres that start from the same place as nerves that run to your bladder and pelvic floor. It is thought that stimulating the tibial nerve will affect these other nerves and help control bladder symptoms, such as the urge to pass urine.
During the procedure, a very thin needle is inserted through the skin of your ankle and a mild electric current is sent through it, causing a tingling feeling and causing your foot to move. You may need 12 sessions of stimulation, each lasting around half an hour, one week apart.
Some studies have shown that this treatment can offer relief from OAB and urge incontinence for some people, although there is not yet enough evidence to recommend tibial nerve stimulation as a routine treatment.
Tibial nerve stimulation is only recommended in a few cases where urge incontinence has not improved with medication and you don’t want to have botulinum toxin A injections or sacral nerve stimulation.
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What To Expect At Your Appointment
During your appointment, your healthcare professional will likely ask questions about your symptoms. Theyll probably want to know how long youve been incontinent, which types of incontinence youve experienced, and other details.
They may also ask about your daily habits, including your typical diet and any medications or supplements that you take.
Depending on your symptoms and medical history, they may also order additional tests, including:
- Collecting a sample of urine for analysis. Laboratory staff can check the urine sample for signs of infection or other problems.
- Measuring the amount of urine that you release when urinating, the amount left over in your bladder, and the pressure in your bladder. This information is gathered by inserting a catheter, or a small tube, into your urethra and your bladder.
- Conducting a cystoscopy. During this test, theyll insert a small camera into your bladder to examine it up close.
If You Have Had Little Luck With Other Incontinence Interventions You May Need To Consider These Interventional Therapies:
- BotoxInjections of Botox into the bladder muscle may benefit you if you have an overactive bladder. Botox generally is prescribed only if medications or conservative treatments havent been successful.
- InterStim therapy With this therapy, a small device the size of a pacemaker is placed under the skin in your hip area. A lead wire is connected to the device and sends electrical impulses to the sacral nerves, which control bladder contraction and function.
- Percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation This therapy is designed to stimulate the nerves responsible for bladder control using the tibial nerve in your lower leg. During the procedure, a small, slim needle electrode is inserted near your tibial nerve and connected to a battery-powered stimulator. The impulses travel to the tibial nerve and then to the sacral nerve, which controls bladder control and function.
Watch this video to learn more about urinary incontinence treatments including sacral neuromodulation therapy:
Read more helpful tips and lifestyle changes that can help you manage urinary retention and incontinence.
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Urinary Incontinence Hampers Normal Life May Cause Depression
Urinary incontinence can be brought on due to physical changes like menopause or childbirth in women. And while women make up the majority of those with incontinence in the United States, men too may develop the problem.1 An enlarged prostate, neurological problems, chronic coughing, obesity, and old age are some of the possible causes of incontinence in men.2
This problem can affect your self-esteem as well as your ability to function normally at home or in the workplace. It can also hamper your activity levels and mobility in general and take its toll on your sexual activity. It isnt surprising that it is also a trigger for depression in many people. Thankfully, some simple, nonsurgical ways can improve your condition and gain control over this otherwise potentially debilitating problem.3 What follows are some exercises you can do anytime, anywhere to help strengthen your pelvic floor muscles and regain proper control.