When symptoms of incontinence begin to surface, for the average person it makes sense to investigate to see if the condition is temporary and possibly even reversible. One of the first things to consider when trying to determine best incontinence treatments is whether an infection might be the root cause. Since incontinence is generally a symptom of some underlying problem, looking for a curable cause rather than assuming that the condition is chronic only makes sense.
Sometimes a person may not even be aware that they have a looming infection, because incontinence is their only symptom. So make sure to rule out causes like urethritis and vaginitis, which are both completely treatable conditions. Continuing along the same thought process, looking for other straightforward causes like constipation, drug side effects, and limited mobility may also lead towards finding incontinence treatments that are highly effective.
After ruling out all of the obvious contributors to incontinence, the next level of investigation should include the actual functioning of the organs in question, which may include problems storing or emptying urine in the bladder, an obstruction of the urethra and a detrusor muscle that is either overactive or underactive. Statistics show that once the obvious causes, like infection, have been ruled out, a good ninety percent of women suffering from incontinence have a problem rooted in the area of bladder storage, regardless of their age.
Both overflow incontinence and stress incontinence relate back to bladder storage problems. For people who are not suffering from either of these two types of incontinence, urge incontinence remains, and it is typically caused by an overactive detrusor muscle, which is the sphincter that keeps urine from escaping from the bladder until the muscle voluntary releases it.
Urge incontinence is typically treated by changing a person’s behavior, which often simply involves tracking food and drink intake along with voiding patterns. When a person suffers from an urgency problem, generally it occurs because the bladder is going into a spasm. This type of incontinence can often be managed by teaching a person to recognize the early sensation of the bladder spasm, and then simply have them tighten the pelvic floor muscles until the spasm ends. Typically a bladder spasm does not last much more than a minute, and once the spasm ceases, a person can make their way to the bathroom without it being urgent. When learning to detect and control the spasms, using incontinence products may help to alleviate any worries of embarrassing, accidental leakage.
While adjusting behavior solves about half of this type of incontinence problem, some people need to supplement the behavior changes with medication to relax the bladder. However, since all medication has side effects it is advisable to try to rectify the problem with behavioral changes first.
When dealing with stress incontinence, which largely affects women, taking a sensible approach seems to work best. For example, if a woman is overweight, the first thing that she needs to do is lose up to ten percent of her weight to dramatically improver any problem with urinary leakage. For a women, using a pessary or a tampon can also help, especially for exercise induced incontinence. Consciously tightening the pelvic floor muscles before coughing, sneezing or laughing is also a very simple and effective method that can be used to manage stress incontinence. Performing Kegel exercises is a wonderful addition to sensible incontinence treatments, because strong pelvic floor muscles help to stave off any symptoms of incontinence.
While some people will need to undergo more extreme incontinence treatments like medication or surgery, it is always a good idea to start with the simplest approach and then move to more complex incontinence treatments only if the simpler solutions fail to produce satisfactory solutions.
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