This month, Dr. Susan Crockett and our Virtuosa GYN team felt a sudden urge to share information about bladder health topics like overactive bladder and stress incontinence.
Both are issues we see very often in our San Antonio, Texas, office, and there’s often a lot of confusion around them. They’re two separate conditions that may happen together.
In honor of National Bladder Health Awareness Month, we provide the details about each.
Stress incontinence
Stress incontinence is urine leakage when you put accidental pressure on your bladder. Women who develop stress incontinence have weakened pelvic floor muscles, a problem that often happens due to pregnancy and childbirth.
Estrogen loss during menopause can lead to pelvic muscle weakening, as can carrying extra weight.
With weak pelvic floor muscles, you’re more likely to accidentally leak urine when you cough, laugh, sneeze, or lift something heavy.
Overactive bladder
Overactive bladder is a group of symptoms, not a condition in and of itself. The term overactive bladder refers to that uncomfortable gotta-go-right-now sensation. These symptoms occur due to problems with brain-bladder nerve signaling or excessive bladder muscle contractions.
Up to 40% of women have overactive bladders today, and it’s especially common after menopause.
Overactive bladder causes an urgent need to urinate, and it doesn’t leave you much time to reach the bathroom. In fact, many women with overactive bladder experience urine leakage, which brings us to the next type of incontinence.
Urgency incontinence
Urgency incontinence happens when you leak urine because you can’t reach the bathroom quickly enough when a powerful urge to urinate hits you. Many, but not all, people with overactive bladder experience urgency incontinence.
Stress incontinence or overactive bladder and urge incontinence?
If you’re experiencing accidental urine leakage, your symptoms can tell you which type of incontinence it could be. With stress incontinence, the leaks happen suddenly and right after some kind of forceful movement like a sneeze.
With overactive bladder and urgency incontinence, the leaks happen quickly after that gotta-go-now feeling.
Some women also experience mixed incontinence, with features of both stress and urgency incontinence.
Hope for incontinence
With extensive experience in treating all types of urinary incontinence, our team can help you overcome incontinence. We always focus on using the most conservative treatments possible so you don’t have to go through surgery unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Prescription medications, pelvic floor exercises, and insertable devices (pessaries) to support your pelvic floor muscles are all effective for many women. We help you find hope, confidence, and life without leaks.
Our Virtuosa GYN team is here to help anytime, so call our office at (210) 664-4753 or contact us online for help today.
