Stress Incontinence

Stress Incontinence

 

Contrary to what you may think, stress incontinence isn’t actually caused by psychological stress. Incontinence is loss of bladder control and can be caused by many different things. This particular type of incontinence is caused by stress on the bladder when you are doing something physical: coughing, sneezing, running or heavy lifting for example.

This type of incontinence is more commonly found within women however many men do suffer from this problem. If you suffer from this problem you may feel shy and embarrassed and place your work and social life on hold to give way to the incontinence however, there are many ways you can help yourself get back to doing everything you love to do no matter what the activity. The important thing to remember is that you are not alone and there are things to help.

 

Symptoms

The only symptoms of stress incontinence are urine leakage or dribbles of pee when you do physical activity. You may not experience it all the time and more strenuous activities may affect it more but whatever the problem there are many ways around it. You may also be more vulnerable to incontinence if your balder is full. Some activities include:

  • Cough or sneeze
  • Heavy lifting
  • Walking, jogging or running
  • Standing up or getting out of a car
  • Laughing
  • Having sex
  • Any form of exercise

At any time, if you feel the symptoms coming on and are not sure what to do the best advice is to go and consult with your doctor, They will have helpful information on how to help and have to resources to help you get the right treatment.

Causes

Stress incontinence is caused when the muscles surrounding the bladder weaken and can no longer help it operate correctly. Therefore, when you do anything that puts pressure through your abdominal muscles or pelvic floor muscles then it presses on the bladder and causes a loss of urine. Don’t be fooled, a lot of activities concern muscle groups that you weren’t aware of, so if you are gaining the symptoms its always good to be prepared in every situation.

Childbirth- This has the potential to massively affect your pelvic floor muscles. You could get the symptoms straight after delivery or it could take years to come through. Within the first three months after childbirth, 1/3 of women say they have gained urinary incontinence. Therefore, if you are planning on having a baby or are pregnant start to do pelvic floor exercises to begin building the strength up. This will reduce the probability of getting stress incontinence.

Prostate surgery- In men, the leading factor that leads to stress incontinence is the removal of the prostrate gland as a treatment of prostrate cancer. As the prostrate is very close to the muscles near the bladder this is a side effect of that surgery.

Contributing factors:

  • An illness that causes chronic sneezing or coughing
  • High intensity activity that has been done for many years
  • Obesity
  • Smoking, as this causes frequent coughing.

Risk factors

These are certain factors that increase the risk of getting stress incontinence:

  • Age – Although incontinence is not a part of aging weakening of the muscles is and therefore the older you get the more likely it can be for you to develop stress incontinence.
  • Childbirth delivery method- If you gave birth through caesarean section will be less likely to get stress incontinence then if a person had a vaginal delivery. Forceps delivery has been proved to have a higher risk of stress incontinence after birth however, vacuum assisted delivery seems to have no effect on the probability of stress incontinence from a normal vaginal delivery.
  • Body weight- People who are obese or have a large body weight can have trouble with stress incontinence as the excess weight will place pressure on the bladder more than usual.
  • Previous pelvic surgery- This can alter the way the effectivity of the muscles around the bladder and the way the bladder functions itself making it much more likely to develop stress incontinence.

 

Complications of stress incontinence

There can be many complications when having stress incontinence, Personal distress. Having stress incontinence can cause many disruptions within your life ranging from work and social activities to relationships and sex life, There are many people out there who aren’t afraid to break the stigma about incontinence and there are twice as many people who have a problem and wont talk to anyone about it. The best advice to give is to keep going with your daily life and don’t let a dribble or two of pee stop you from doing things you enjoy. If you suffer from mixed incontinence which is a mix of both stress and urge incontinence then this can also disrupt your daily life but there are methods to stop this such as Forma-care Uk’s pull up pants, as they have been tested and are easy to use, of the highest quality and are discreet. Another problem that stress incontinence might cause is when the urine burns skin. This can be caused when urine settles frequently on sensitive skin causing irritation and a burning sensation. This can be solved by using moisture barriers or using Forma care’s extensive range of high-quality incontinence products for both men and women. We have an easy to use chart which looks at the severity of your incontinence and then which products are best suited to you and your needs.

 

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