Have you ever noticed that even with the most terrible of diseases, celebrities line up to be a spokesperson for the cause?  It is a strange phenomenon that the biggest and brightest celebrities literally elbow each other out of the way to grab their moment in the spotlight representing diseases like cancer and diabetes.  While the diseases are not very glamorous, the celebrities are.

And, if a famous person has actually battled the disease and emerged victorious, they shout it from the rooftops for all to hear.  Even with less dramatic medical challenges, if they have overcome it or simply found a way to live with it, they can hardly wait to share their triumphant story with the entire world.

So this begs the question, which celebrities are championing the cause for adult incontinence?  There are lists of celebrities talking about diabetes including Nicholas Jonas and Halle Berry.  Other celebrities, like Wynonna Judd, want to make sure that everyone knows about serious health problems like asthma and even allergies.  Big names line up to claim everything from breast cancer, dyslexia, Crohn’s disease and even aids, but not a peep for incontinence until Ulrika Jonsson stepped up this past March to talk about her experience with light adult incontinence after the birth of her fourth child.

Before Jonsson, speed skating champion Bonnie Blair lent her name to the cause back in 2004, and the campaign took off like a herd of turtles.  One in twelve women suffer some sort of adult incontinence, the involuntary leakage of urine, and it is often associated with childbirth.  One survey found that about half of the women were too embarrassed to seek medical help for over five years.  But the question that just seems to hang in the air is that with so many celebrities having babies these days, why hasn’t anyone claimed this cause as their own?  Surely associating with a cause like incontinence is not nearly as horrible as aligning oneself with a disease like cancer, or is it?

While only a single, brave celebrity is currently speaking out about incontinence, droves of celebrities are lining up to speak up about everything from aids to colon cancer.  Why then is the subject of incontinence so frightening?   It seems that anyone who is lucky enough to live a long life has a pretty good chance of having at least a brush with incontinence.  Incontinence does not only strike women after childbirth, but about 40% of women and 20% of men over the age of 60 will have to deal with this affliction.  Only about half of these women and about one fifth of these men ever seek out help.  Again, why?

Study after study has been done to try to understand why this problem is so underreported, and the general consensus is that it is simply and deeply embarrassing and maybe even a little infantile.  This condition is shrouded in shame, and as a result many people suffer in silence rather than get help.  Herein lies the real tragedy, because most cases of incontinence are treatable with relatively high cure rates.

Of course to be cured, first you have to be diagnosed, and unfortunately this requires a trip to the doctor.  There are several different types of incontinence, and there are many causes.  Everything from a malfunctioning body part to weakened pelvic muscles can cause incontinence, and each specific cause has a specific treatment.  Treatments can be as simple as instituting a new exercise routine and as complex as surgery; so a proper diagnosis of the specific cause for each individual case of incontinence is essential.

This is where celebrities speaking out about the problem can really help so many people.  By talking about the condition it becomes ordinary and accepted as a normal part of life.  Over time the taboo slips away, and incontinence becomes just another normal problem that you may have to deal with in your lifetime, like getting reading glasses as your eye muscles weaken or monitoring your blood pressure.  The misapplied shame will be stripped away from this condition and all of the people who are suffering in the shadows can step into the light of day and get some much needed help.  For many of them, the problem can be cured, and for others their condition can certainly be improved.

So hats off to the Bonnie Blairs and Ulrika Jonssons of the world.  Perhaps as they continue to share their stories with the public, they can not only begin to erase the stigma shrouding the subject of  adult incontinence but also encourage other celebrities to join their ranks and help normalize this condition even more quickly.