When you are out with your special person and you have a little sneeze from all of the pollen in the air, does a sudden stab of panic fill your body, because every time you sneeze you pee just a little? Do nights out with your girls get cut short because you laughed and peed? Do you cough and pee? Do you pickup your pet and pee? Is this uncontrolled pee affecting your life? Are you not going out as much, holding in coughs and sneezes, not picking up your pets, kids or grandkids as much? If you said yes to
any of the above and can think of even more circumstances that cause the pee to flow, you are not alone. You are suffering from stress incontinence.
Stress incontinence is very common among women, young and old. Stress incontinence is different than urgency incontinence and overactive bladder. First and foremost, the stress in stress incontinence is not stress in the psychological nature but actually refers to a physical strain. Stress incontinence is experienced by 1 out of 3 women at some point in their lives. Women are more prone than men and it is shown that behavior therapy helps better than pharmacological treatments.
Stress incontinence occurs when you put pressure on your bladder and/or uretha. The tissues and muscles of the pelvic floor control the uretha so when these muscles are weak, you have the leakage. It can be caused by childbirth, age, weight gain, prostate surgery, injury, chronic illness where you cough a lot like asthma and hysterectomy.
Always go to the doctor first and check anything out. Urinary tract infections need to be ruled out as do other illnesses. Once the doctor confirms stress incontinence, you can do a few things at home: Kegels, which are exercises that work the pelvic floor muscles. One of the easiest exercises is while you are peeing, start and stop the flow. Another exercise is to imagine you are sitting on a marble and imagine picking that marble up with your pelvic floor.
Other ways to combat stress incontinence are diet and creams for the vaginal floor. Make sure before inserting any creams they are made to be inserted.
There are also surgical and non surgical ways to combat stress incontinence, so be sure and ask your doctor if at home methods do not work.