Urinary Incontinence

Prevention

Most women do not need to worry about preventing urinary incontinence. This problem can be treated once it begins.

If you are considering whether or not to have a hysterectomy (removal of the uterus) and if this surgery is not essential, you should know that urinary incontinence is more common in women who have had a hysterectomy.

Estrogen replacement will not reduce your likelihood of developing urinary incontinence, although doctors once thought that estrogen could help. It is used only as a treatment for a specific cause of urinary tract symptoms (atrophic vaginitis), and is not recommended as a preventive strategy.

Women who are obese and women who don’t exercise regularly are more likely to develop urinary incontinence. This is a good reason to eat a healthy diet and exercise throughout your life.

Treatment

Kegel Exercises

In many cases, women can improve or eliminate urinary incontinence by doing pelvic muscle exercises. These exercises, called Kegel exercises, strengthen the muscles that surround the openings of the urethra, vagina and rectum. Kegel exercises are particularly helpful for stress incontinence, but they can also help you to control your bladder if you have other types of incontinence.

To do Kegel exercises, you need to squeeze your muscles in a way that causes you to feel tightening of your rectum and vagina. A typical recommendation is for women to hold Kegel squeezes for six to eight seconds at a time, and to group eight or twelve squeezes into each session. You can repeat groupings of these exercises several times each week. It can take several months or longer before benefits are seen.

Bladder Retraining

Urge incontinence can be improved by a simple plan that can help your bladder to become less sensitive to its triggers over time. The squeezing of your bladder is a conditioned response. To help your bladder to be less “jumpy”, you will need to give your bladder a spell of time when it is not stimulated by the signal of a full bladder. To accomplish this, empty your bladder on a rigid schedule before it becomes full. This may require you to set a timer or a stopwatch, and to stop at a bathroom every half hour or hour. After you have had a day or two of success, you can gradually lengthen the interval between your bathroom stops. Your bladder may not respond as urgently after several weeks of this re-conditioning program.