Overview
What is Kidney Stones
Health Tools
What Happens
Signs & Symptoms
Symptoms
When To Call a Doctor
Causes, Risks & Prevention
Cause
What Increases Your Risk
Prevention
Urinary Incontinence is the inability of controlling urination. It may occur at any age for a number of reasons, out of which strong physical movements and stress are the two most common causes.
The Types of Urinary Incontinence
Stress: Leakage of few drops of urine during a strong physical movement like coughing, sneezing, exercising
Transient: Temporary problem of leakage due to infection, coughing, cold, medication or etc.
Overactive Bladder: Urinary regularity and urgency, with/out urge incontinence
Urge: Leakage of heavy drops of urine at sudden situations
Functional: Ill-timed urination due to physical disability, communication difficulty, mentally challenged, external obstacles.
Overflow: Sudden, restricted flow of urine due to a full bladder
Urinary Incontinence Diagnosis :
Bladder stress test: Vigorous coughing is practiced to take notice the loss of urine from the urinary opening.
Urinalysis and urine culture: Urine test for infection, stones and other such substances.
Ultrasound: Sound waves are used to develop an image of the kidneys, ureters, bladder, and urethra.
Cystoscopy: A thin tube with a small camera is inserted in the urethra to check the urethra and bladder for urinary incontinence causes.
Urodynamics: Techniques employed to measure the pressure created in the bladder and the urine flow.
Urinary Incontinence Treatment
As per the cause of the Urinary Incontinence, the treatment is prescribed. Some of the treatments that are most common prescribed are:
Weight loss
Proper Diet
Proper pelvic floor muscle exercise
Medication
Medical device help such as urethral inserts and pressary
Interventional therapies such as radiofrequency therapy, sacral nerve stimulator, bulking material injection, Botulinum toxin type A.
Electrical stimulation
Urinary Incontinence Surgery :
If other treatments aren't working, several surgical procedures have been developed to fix problems that cause urinary incontinence.
Tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) surgery: TVT surgery is mostly recommended in the cases of stress incontinence. In this surgery, urinary incontinence surgeon places a meshlike tape under the urethra like a sling to provide support to it and return it to its normal position. A tape through small incisions is inserted in your vagina and pubic hair line. Theis urinary incontinence surgery takes about half an hour, on local anesthesia. A very similar to this, is the transobturator tape (TOT) surgery is like TVT surgery.
Retropubic suspension: The two most common procedures of retropubic suspension are Marshall-Marchetti-Krantz (MMK) and Burch colposuspension. Retropubic surgeries are performed to lift and re-position the sagging bladder neck and urethra. In this urinary inconteinence surgery, supporting tissues are attached to the pubic bone or tough ligaments.
Urethral sling: The surgeon places piece of muscle, ligament, or tendon tissue or synthetic material into a sling to lift up the urethra a normal position.
Artificial urinary sphincter. Due to prostate enlargement or caner treatment, a few men develop weakened urinary sphincters. In the surgery, a urinary incontinence surgeon, place a doughnut shaped device around the neck of the bladder to impede the flow till the time you are not ready to urinate. In order to urinate, you need to press a valve implanted under your skin, causing the ring to deflate and let urine flow from the bladder.
