Learning how to control your bladder is an important step in growing up. What happens, though, when you’re all grown up and find yourself running to the restroom every few minutes? Or worse, when you can’t make it in time?
Embarrassment, shame, and guilt probably come to mind, but they shouldn’t. Urinary incontinence is a treatable medical condition, and it’s more common than you might think.
The hardest-hit group is older women, with more than 4 in 10 women 65 years and older affected. However, anyone at any age can be affected, including men.
Dr. Aleksander Bodnar is a board-certified OB/GYN at Viva Health in Clifton and Clark, New Jersey. He understands not only the sensitivity of what you’re going through but also the importance of getting proper medical treatment.
That’s why he diagnoses and treats both frequent urination and urinary incontinence.
Is there more than one type of urinary incontinence?
Actually, there are two forms of incontinence:
Stress incontinence
This form is the most common and tends to affect younger women. It occurs when stress or pressure is placed on the bladder, leading to leakage.
Unfortunately, stress may come from such seemingly innocuous actions as laughing, sneezing, coughing, or just making sudden movements. It can also result from weak pelvic floor muscles, which press against the bladder and urethra and make them work harder.
Urge incontinence
This form is also called an overactive bladder. With urge incontinence, you experience a strong, sudden urge to urinate, which can even be triggered by hearing the sound of running water. You don’t always make it to the restroom in time.
In addition, you may experience frequent urination, needing to urinate more than eight times a day but not producing much once you get to the restroom.
Men experience urge more than stress incontinence, often due to an enlarged prostate.
Why do you become incontinent?
The biggest risk factor for developing urinary incontinence is being a woman. Women develop stress incontinence twice as often as men because of pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause, all of which affect the urinary tract and surrounding muscles.
These life events can also weaken the pelvic floor muscles that support the bladder, urethra, bowels, and uterus, making it difficult to hold in urine until you’re ready to urinate.
In addition, women have shorter urethras than men; any weakness or damage to this muscle can make it harder to hold in urine.
Treating urinary incontinence
If you’re dealing with incontinence, Dr. Bodnar has effective, noninvasive, and minimally invasive treatments for it and related symptoms:
Acoustic wave therapy
This noninvasive, nonhormonal alternative to conventional treatments provides long-lasting symptom relief. It uses gentle sound waves to stimulate the regeneration of vaginal tissue and improve overall blood flow to the area.
Votiva®
Incontinence can also lead to sexual dysfunction, including vaginal dryness, chronic vulvar pain, pain during sex, decreased libido, and trouble reaching orgasm. Votiva addresses these additional symptoms, using radiofrequency energy to:
- Decrease stress incontinence
- Improve blood flow
- Decrease pain from labial hypertrophy
- Improve libido and self-esteem
- Strengthen vaginal muscles
- Tighten the vaginal canal
- Increase lubrication
Votiva is often used together with Kegel exercises.
Kegel exercises
Kegel exercises are specialized exercises used to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles, which can then better support the bladder and urethra. They’re easy to learn, and you can perform them anywhere at any time since no one can tell you’re doing them.
If you feel like you’re always heading to the restroom, come into Viva Health for a consultation with Dr. Bodnar. Give us a call at either of our locations or book your appointment online.