What is Urinary Incontinence? Know The Symptoms, Causes And Treatment

Laughter is the best medicine but what if it becomes a reason for the stress of being embarrassed. Urinary incontinence is the involuntary loss of urine and Stress incontinence is the most common type of it. About every 1/3 rd of women suffer from it but they don’t talk about it and live with it every day. And because of it, some may isolate themselves from social gatherings. They don’t even realize that they are many ways to deal with it.Also Read – Heart Failure in Children: Doctors Explain How You Can Reverse it

What is Urinary incontinence?

Urinary incontinence is when a small amount of urine leaks from the urethra when you cough, sneeze or even laugh. So basically when the abdominal pressure increases and the muscles in the pelvis get weakened. This causes the bladder to drop down into a position that prevents the urethra from closing completely resulting in urine loss. This usually happens with women who have given birth but it can affect women of any age group. During pregnancy and childbirth, these pelvic floor muscles get weakened up as they carry the weight of the baby apart from their normal functioning. So these muscles work really hard and lose their tone. That is why it is important to train these muscles after birth as well. Also Read – What is COVID Ear and How Coronavirus Can Lead to Tinnitus, Vertigo or Hearing Loss Symptoms?

Women who experiences this during their pregnancy have more chances of developing it in early age. Depending upon the severity of the condition you may experience dribbling or you may squirt. If the condition worsen then there is tendency that you leak if you just bend or walking or just stand up. Also Read – 7 Warning Signs of Cancer in Women That Shouldn’t be Ignored

Apart from pregnancy and Childbirth there are factors that increases the chances of developing stress incontinence:

• Age: Women of older age group are more affected as with age muscles get weakened up.
• Mode of delivery. As compare to C sec, women who have undergone normal delivery have more chances of developing it. Further in assisted normal birth, women who have undergone forceps delivery than vacuum extraction have higher chances of developing it.
• Body weight. People who are overweight or obese have a high chances of stress incontinence because it increases pressure on the abdominal and pelvic organs.
• Previous pelvic surgery. Women who have undergone hysterectomy can have stress incontinence as it can weaken the muscles that support the bladder and urethra.
• Nerve injury to lumbar spine
• Smoking : Smoking can be associated with chronic coughing and when you cough it again increase the abdominal pressure.
• Constipation: Women who have a history of chronic constipation can also suffer from it as during straining it again increases the abdominal pressure.
• Excessive caffeine: Caffeine intake increases the urination and frequent urination can also lead to leakage.

How can you help yourself?

• Lifestyle changes: Cut down caffeine intake, alcohol use and smoking.
• Avoid constipation: Include high fibers in your diet.
• Weight management: Losing weight reduces severity of stress incontinence.
• Maintain your bladder diary : It is important to know how much or how frequent you leak. This will also give you an idea for the triggering factor. This help your health care provider to understand your case.

How physiotherapy can help you?

• Pelvic floor muscle strengthening: Kegal’s exercise can help in strengthening and this can prevent leakage.
• With physiotherapeutic modality we can stimulate the muscles by sending mild electrical current through your pelvic floor muscles that helps in strengthening.

(Inputs by Dr Neha Gill PT, Senior Physiotherapist, Cloudnine Group of Hospitals, Chandigarh)