Treatment for urinary incontinence depends on the type of incontinence, the severity of your problem and the underlying cause. Your doctor will recommend the approaches best suited to your condition. Often a combination of treatments is used.
Treatment options for urinary incontinence range from more conservative approaches, including behavioral techniques and physical therapy to more aggressive options, such as surgery.
In most cases, your doctor will suggest the least invasive treatments first, so you'll try behavioral techniques and physical therapy first and move on to other options only if these techniques fail.
The success of your treatment depends most of all on the right diagnosis. Talk to your doctor about the specifics and possible complications of any treatment. Ask questions and express concerns to help determine which treatment is right for you.
Behavioral techniques
Behavioral techniques and lifestyle changes work well for certain types of urinary incontinence. They may be the only treatment you need.
- Bladder training. Your doctor may recommend bladder training — alone or in combination with other therapies — to control urge and other types of incontinence. Bladder training involves learning to delay urination after you get the urge to go. You may start by trying to hold off for 10 minutes every time you feel an urge to urinate. The goal is to lengthen the time between trips to the toilet until you're urinating every two to four hours.
- Bladder training may also involve double voiding — urinating, then waiting a few minutes and trying again. This exercise can help you learn to empty your bladder more completely to avoid overflow incontinence. In addition, bladder training may involve learning to control urges to urinate. When you feel the urge to urinate, you're instructed to relax — breathe slowly and deeply — or to distract yourself with an activity.
- Scheduled toilet trips. This means timed urination — going to the toilet according to the clock rather than waiting for the need to go. Following this technique, you go to the toilet on a routine, planned basis — usually every two to four hours.
- Fluid and diet management. In some cases, you can simply modify your daily habits to regain control of your bladder. You may need to cut back on or avoid alcohol, caffeine or acidic foods. Reducing liquid consumption, losing weight or increasing physical activity are other lifestyle changes that can eliminate the problem.
Physical therapy
- Pelvic floor muscle exercises. These exercises strengthen your urinary sphincter and pelvic floor muscles — the muscles that help control urination. Your doctor may recommend that you do these exercises frequently. They are especially effective for stress incontinence, but may also help urge incontinence.
- To do pelvic floor muscle exercises (Kegels), imagine that you're trying to stop your urine flow. Squeeze the muscles you would use to stop urinating and hold for a count of three and repeat.
- With Kegels, it can be difficult to know whether you're contracting the right muscles and in the right manner. In general, if you sense a pulling-up feeling when you squeeze, you're using the right muscles. Men may feel their penises pull in slightly toward their bodies. To double-check that you're contracting the right muscles, try the exercises in front of a mirror. Your abdominal, buttock or leg muscles shouldn't tighten if you're isolating the muscles of the pelvic floor.
If you're still not sure whether you're contracting the right muscles, ask your doctor for help. Your doctor may suggest you work with a physical therapist or try biofeedback techniques to help you identify and contract the right muscles. Your doctor may also suggest vaginal cones, which are weights that help women strengthen the pelvic floor.
Source: For More Information - Mayo Clinic
