AdventHealth Health Hub: Overcoming Urinary Incontinence

If you’re leaking a little when sneezing or constantly feeling the sudden urge to “go,” you might be aware of the silent stigma surrounding urinary incontinence. Statements such as “It’s normal,” or “Just live with it,” can become common misbeliefs. But the reality is this: facing urinary incontinence and suffering in silence can impact a woman’s quality of life.

TYPES OF URINARY INCONTINENCE

Stress urinary incontinence is loss of urine with activities like sneezing, walking, coughing or jumping, whereas urgency urinary incontinence is loss of urine associated with urgency to urinate. While the risk for urinary incontinence increases with age, both types can happen to women of any age.

Additional risk factors for urinary incontinence include:

• Previous pregnancy
• Family history
• Being overweight

DIAGNOSING URINARY INCONTINENCE

After an extensive review of a patient’s medical history, we talk about specific symptoms such as when a patient leaks and how often she empties her bladder. From there, a few simple in-office tests are performed depending on the patient’s history and symptoms.

TREATMENT FOR URINARY INCONTINENCE

There are many safe treatment options for urinary incontinence, most of which are non-surgical. Treatment options differ based on which type of urinary incontinence you may be dealing with, but we always start with the most conservative option first.

Non-surgical treatment options can include:

• pelvic floor exercises and physical therapy
• modifying lifestyle factors
• pelvic floor devices
• nerve modulation
• medications and other therapies such as Botox® injections

If conservative treatment options do not restore your quality of life, there are surgical solutions we can consider as well, including a mid-urethral sling that can be placed with a very quick procedure in outpatient surgery. Eighty to ninety percent of women with stress incontinence report treatment success with this procedure.

Urinary incontinence affects many women of all ages. While it’s common, any type of urine leakage is not normal. If incontinence is bothersome to your quality of life, consider asking for help.

Lindsay Kissane, MD  is a fellowship-trained  urogynecologist. Along  with treating urinary and fecal incontinence in women, Dr. Kissane treats a range of female pelvic floor disorders with surgical and non-surgical options.

To learn more and to make an appointment, visit YourCentralFloridaDoctor.com/UROGYN for a customized search by zip code or call 407-303-1380. All of our health care providers are part of the AdventHealth Care Network.