Stress urinary incontinence affects a great deal of people. Individuals with this condition are unable to control the urge to urinate. Whether someone needs to really go to the bathroom urgently or not, the urinary contraction muscles will not be able to hold the urine in and the person may involuntarily soil their pants.
How Stress Urinary Incontinence Affects Your Life
Stress urinary incontinence can be a really embarrassing and inconvenient problem to have. The stress factor doesn’t signify emotional stress, but physical pressure or stress on the bladder. It can cause someone to become socially isolated and cut off from friends and family.
People with the condition may begin to feel like they cannot step out of the house freely due to the fear of passing urine involuntarily or unconsciously against their will. While the problem is known to affect both men and women, women are affected by this problem twice as much as the men.
What Are the Causes of Stress Urinary Incontinence?
Studies and in-depth research conducted by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases have shown that women are twice as likely men to develop stress urinary incontinence. The main reasons why women seem to be affected by this problem include:
• Pregnancy and childbirth, more so if the woman has had more than one child or multiple childbirths.
• When a woman is carrying a child or has recently delivered one, her pelvic and sphincter muscles are stretched out and weakened.
• Older women who develop a chronic and subsisting cough due to age and other conditions can develop stress urinary incontinence.
• It can result as a side effect of pelvic surgery.
• A weakening urethra during menstruation or a week before menstruation as estrogen levels drop.
Causes of stress urinary incontinence among the men include:
Men may become inflicted with stress urinary incontinence after undergoing a prostate surgery. The removal of the prostate gland that surrounds the urethra in a man can result in loss of support of the male urethra.
Common causes of stress urinary incontinence in both men and women include:
• Smoking
• A chronic cough and related conditions
• Hormonal deficiencies
• Constipation
• Obesity
• Over consumption of caffeine and alcohol
• Too much physical activity over a long period of time
Symptoms of Stress Urinary Incontinence
The main symptoms one develops with this condition is the inability to control the urge to pass urine and the loss of bladder control while performing any kind of physical activity whether it’s light or excessive. The person inflicted might either pass a few drops of urine or have a full flow of urine.
Some of the physical activities and actions that can cause someone with stress urinary incontinence to pass urine involuntarily are:
• Sneezing
• Coughing
• Jumping
• Laughing
• Exercising
• Walking or jogging
• Running
• Lifting heavy weights
• Having sex
Other symptoms of stress urinary incontinence include the feeling to pass urine urgently even when the bladder is not full or is mostly empty. Standing up after being seated for a long time can put pressure on the bladder and cause urine to leak.
The symptoms of stress urinary incontinence differ from person to person and are unique to the individual meaning what affects one person might or might not affect another person.
Contact Our Office
If you have questions regarding stress urinary incontinence, we can help you. Contact our office to speak with Doctors John R. Miklos and Robert Moore to receive the help you need concerning this embarrassing issue. They will help you find relief and build your confidence.