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Frequent Causes of Urge Incontinence in Men

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Urge incontinence in men can be a frustrating problem. Symptoms may include a sudden, urgent need to urinate, followed by incontinence if a toilet is not readily available. Many men suffer from urge incontinence to varying degrees without understanding that, in many cases, it can be helped or even cured with proper treatment. What causes urge incontinence in men? There can be many contributing factors, which include the following:

Diabetes - Diabetes can damage the nerves that affect control of bladder function.

Stroke, Parkinson’s disease and MS (multiple sclerosis) - All of these conditions can lead to problems with emptying the bladder that cause the bladder to become overly full. This overfilling can, in turn, lead to urgency and incontinence.

Prostate Disease - The prostate gland, which surrounds the urethra at the bladder neck, is a frequent cause of urge incontinence in men. Enlargement of this gland, cancer of the prostate or treatment to cure cancer of the prostate may all cause the symptoms of urge incontinence in men.

Overactive Bladder - In overactive bladder, the urge to urinate may occur frequently and may be so strong that the urge cannot be ignored. Overactive bladder symptoms may be due to nerve damage, as discussed above, or may be caused by an unknown factor.

Infection - A bladder or kidney infection can cause symptoms of urge incontinence in men. This condition is generally very treatable with appropriate antibiotics, but may be overlooked as a simple cause of the problem.

Obesity - Being overweight can put increased pressure on the bladder, and may worsen symptoms of urge incontinence in men.

Constipation - Being constipated can also cause urge incontinence. Stool that impacts in the lower intestine may place extra pressure on the bladder and urethra, causing the sensation of urgency.

Urge incontinence in men should always be addressed by a physician. Although it may be embarrassing to admit this problem to your doctor, discussing the issue may lead to a cure. However, if the problem cannot be entirely resolved, your doctor may be able to improve symptoms so that they are less bothersome.

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Urge Incontinence in Women Increases the Chance of Injury

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

With age comes wisdom and also comes an increased chance of injury. The chance of developing urinary incontinence increases as a women crests sixty. Urge incontinence, in particular, will occur in up to 40% of women in this age group. Since urge incontinence in women manifests itself as a sudden spasm of the bladder accompanied by an urgent need to urinate, it is credited with increasing the incidence of falls resulting in injury in this same segment of the population.

Falling is problematic in the elderly anyway. Add to this predisposition for injury an affliction whose symptoms causes a woman to rush to the bathroom to avoid having an accident, and you have a recipe for disaster. By the age of 65 every third woman can expect some sort of injury from a fall. The most prevalent cause of hospital trauma admissions, fracturing a bone in a fall, is frequently the beginning of the end for an older woman. This one mishap can change their lives permanently. Consider an older woman falling and fracturing her hip, preventing her from being able to live on her own ever again.

When you consider the symptoms of urge incontinence in this light, these symptoms take on an ominous tone. An overpowering urgency to get to the restroom to avoid having an accident can lead to a careless and life changing accident when urgency overrides safety. This hurried compulsion to get to the bathroom immediately opens an older woman up for slipping, tripping and falling, especially when rushing to the bathroom at night. Over half of these treacherous falls happen in the safety of a woman’s own home.

By identifying the cause of the urge incontinence and remedying the situation, there is a good chance that a woman can avoid falling and suffering a debilitating fracture. Unfortunately many women do not discuss their incontinence problems with their doctor, so they never even seek treatment. Sometimes embarrassment is the cause for this omission, and other times an older woman simply assumes that the incontinence is just a normal side effect of ageing and nothing can be done about it. Depending on the cause of urge incontinence in women there are a number of different ways to go about treating it ranging from biofeedback to medication to surgery.

In studies that measure the relationship between the increase in harmful falls among women suffering from incontinence versus women who are not suffering from incontinence, the former group were about 25% more likely to take a spill. Urge incontinence poses the greatest risk for an elderly woman falling, while there was not increased risk for women suffering from stress incontinence. Of the group of women that do take a tumble, about a third of them will suffer a fracture.

Falling is already a serious health issue for elderly women, and urge incontinence in women just exacerbates the situation. So if you or a loved one over the age of 65 are suffering from urge incontinence marked by a sudden and urgent need to urinate, discuss the problem with your doctor, and together you can come up with a cure or a safe management solution for your problem. Using good quality incontinence products or adding a bedside commode next to the bed can help mitigate the chances of falling and sustaining serious injury. Removing the urgency from urge incontinence, helps keep elderly women healthy and safe even if the situation is chronic.

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What is Urge Incontinence?

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

One of the most prevalent types of urinary incontinence in older adults is urge incontinence. So it is important to understand what is urge incontinence. You may also hear this type of incontinence called a spastic or overactive bladder, because it is caused by abnormal bladder spasms or contractions. It manifests itself as a very sudden and strong ‘urge’ to urinate. While the involuntary loss of urine may seem like a disease unto itself, it is actually a harbinger of an underlying problem, and as such it should not be ignored.

When you notice the symptoms of urge incontinence beginning, you will want to let your doctor know, and he or she can help you to determine the source of the problem. There are many different things that can cause urge incontinence, so it is a good idea to have a medical professional evaluate your individual problem. When you suffer from urge incontinence the spasms in the bladder cause such a sudden and violent contraction, that urine is forced through the strong sphincter muscles normally charged with regulating the flow of urine.

The key then, is to find out why the contraction occurs in the first place. There are many different reasons why the bladder may experience sudden and strong contractions, and this is why it is important to discuss your problem with a medical health professional. Your doctor can determine if some sort of nerve damage has occurred possibly as a result of disease or injury. By the same token, this condition can occur as a result of damage to the spinal cord.

Despite best efforts, there are many times when the exact cause cannot be found even though a trigger is found like the bladder may be stimulated into contracting at the sound of running water. However, even if you do not find the exact cause of your urge incontinence, it is important to rule out some major diseases as the cause.

The symptoms for urge incontinence are pretty straight forward. Accompanied by an involuntary urine leakage, you are constantly feeling the urge to urinate. The leakage happens both during the day and at night, and in some cases the problem can be cured while in other cases it simply needs to be managed.

Urge incontinence is generally treated with behavior modification, medication or surgery depending on the underlying cause of the condition. So now that you have answered the question, what is urge incontinence, you can work with your medical professional to manage your particular situation in the best way possible. At DryForLife we have been helping our customers deal with their incontinence challenges for over forty years, and now we are ready to help you.

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Mental Health Related to Bladder Problems in Women

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

A study was done on 121 female veterans in the United States who suffered from lower urinary tract symptoms. The researchers evaluated the women’s age, race, obstetric history, mental health history and sexual trauma history. This group of women was compared to a control group of 1298 women.

The results of the study showed that women who suffered from psychiatric disorders and women who suffered from sexual trauma have an increased risk of suffering from incontinence, specifically an overactive bladder or urge incontinence.

When the control group was compared with the women who suffered from incontinence, the women suffering from incontinence had much higher incidences of psychiatric disorders. In the group suffering from incontinence 64.5 percent of the women suffered from some type of psychiatric disorder; whereas in the control group only 25.9 percent of the women suffered from any sort of psychiatric disorder.

Again when the control group was compared to the women who had incontinence symptoms, the women with incontinence also reported a much higher incidence of sexual trauma. The group of women dealing with incontinence had 49.6 percent of the women reporting some sort of sexual trauma, while the control group only had 20.1 percent of the women reporting some kind of sexual trauma.

This is the first study, which looks at the association of psychiatric health or sexual trauma and urinary incontinence. The study was conducted by doctors at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, and the results were released online on October 22 well ahead of the study’s publication in the December issue of the Journal of Urology.

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Urge Urinary Incontinence Treated Successfully with Medical Therapy and Bladder Retraining

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

If you are experiencing a strong and sudden need to urinate, followed by your bladder contracting and urine leakage, then you are probably dealing with urge urinary incontinence. Your symptoms will include a distended or uncomfortable abdomen, the need to urinate frequently whether day or night, involuntary urine loss, and the sudden urgent need to urinate.

With these symptoms you should seek out medical help, because there are treatments that can help you. Once you have been properly diagnosed by a medical professional, treatments including bladder retraining and medical therapy are options for management or a cure.

While you can manage the bladder retraining, your doctor will have to prescribe any medical therapy that may be necessary. Bladder retraining is exactly what it sounds like, simply retraining your bladder to properly void. To start you will set a timer to urinate before your body gets the urge to void. With your timer, you will urinate every hour whether or not you feel that you need to. If you have to go sooner than an hour, try to hold it. After one week on the hour schedule, you will move your intervals to ninety minutes. The following week you will increase your intervals to two hours, followed by two and a half hours the next week, and finally followed by three hours the week after that.

Once you reach three hours, you will stay there and plan to urinate about every three hours, and while this process will take over a month to complete, it will be well worth your time.

If your doctor determines that you will need medical therapy for your urge incontinence, you will very likely be prescribed Ditropan, imipramine or Detrol. Each of these medicines works in conjunction with bladder retraining, and together the medical therapy coupled with the bladder retraining is very effective for dealing with urge urinary incontinence.

And as you are working through the solution to your problem, incontinence pads can free you from the worry of having urinary leakage in public. They protect clothing and furniture, and they offer protection from skin irritation. DryForLife supplies incontinence pads, which may be ordered online and delivered discreetly right to your front door.

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Tags: bladder retraining, Medications, Urinary Incontinence, urinary leakage
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Nocturia- When Your Bladder Won’t Let You Sleep

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Nocturia, or frequent voiding at night, can be a troublesome problem that robs you of sleep and causes excessive daytime sleepiness. When it is coupled with incontinence, the problem can be a true nightmare. What causes the problem? There can be many contributing factors to noctiria, including excesive fluid intake too close to bedtime, side effects of certain medications, and drinking beverages containing alcohol and caffeine, which may act as diuretics. Nocturia may be coupled with other voiding problems, such as stress incontinence, urge incontinence (overactive bladder) or overflow incontinence.

What can be done about it? The first step in coping with nocturia may be to eliminate some of the above factors that may be contributing to the problem. By avoiding drinking alcoholic beverages and caffeine-containing beverages too close to bedtime, you may find that your need to void during the night is decreased. If you feel that your medications may be contributing to the problem, you should speak to your physician about changing your medication times. Your physician may also want to rule out other, more serious, causes.

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Tags: Medications, nocturia, Types of Incontinence
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Botox for Urge Incontinence - Not Just For Wrinkles

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Botox has been used for years as a wrinkle reducer, and has also recently been hailed as a breakthrough for treating migraine headaches. More importantly, and of interest to those who may be suffering from urge incontinence, Botox has been shown to be effectve in reducing or eliminating symptoms in urge incontinence.

How does it work? Urge incontinence is the product of an overactive bladder, and people who suffer from urge incontinence feel an urgent need to urinate as the result of bladder spasms. They also feel the need to urinate frequently due to these unpleasant bladder spasms. Conventional treatment consists of bladder retraining, medications and sometimes surgery.

Botox has been found to be effective in treating urge incontinence when it is injected into the bladder muscle that is responsible for the bladder spasms, thus reducing urgency and frequency. The downside of Botox is that it is not a permanent cure- Botox wears off in a matter of months, necessitating further treatment. However, in studies people who have been treated with Botox report a reduction in symptoms and, in some cases, a complete absence of symptoms following Botox injections. Botox has not been approved for this purpose, but trials are taking place. If this treatment interests you, you may want to consider if there are any trials taking place near you. To read more about this exciting new breakthrough, click here.

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Archive for the ‘Urge Incontinence’ Category

Frequent Causes of Urge Incontinence in Men

Urge Incontinence in Women Increases the Chance of Injury

What is Urge Incontinence?

Mental Health Related to Bladder Problems in Women

Urge Urinary Incontinence Treated Successfully with Medical Therapy and Bladder Retraining

Nocturia- When Your Bladder Won’t Let You Sleep

Botox for Urge Incontinence - Not Just For Wrinkles

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