Stress incontience
The term incontinence indicates the condition where there is an unintentional loss of urine. In stress incontinence, physical movements and activities like coughing, sneezing and the lifting of heavy products all give stress on the bladder. However, stress incontinence is not necessarily connected to psychological stress, and tends to occur more in women than men.



With stress incontinence, you may suffer embarrassment in society and tend to isolate yourself and place limitations in your social and work life. In stress incontinence, it is not necessary to experience incontinence every time you cough and sneeze. However, you tend to get more susceptible to urine loss with a full bladder.

There are many causes for stress incontinence where poor urinary control is one of the main causes. With weak pelvic muscles and a weak urinary sphincter due to childbirth or some surgery, one tends to develop stress incontinence. Besides this, there are many other factors that tend to contribute to stress incontinence like urinary tract infection, excessive consumption of alcohol or caffeine or sports like tennis and running.

Illnesses that lead to chronic coughing and sneezing may lead to stress incontinence. This includes smoking that causes frequent coughing. Diabetes is a disease that induces stress incontinence too as it causes excess production of urine and nerve damage. Use of too much of diuretics that increase the production of urine can also lead to stress incontinence.



There are some risk factors associated with stress incontinence like age. Here it is not actually age that is a risk factor; it is the aging process and the physical changes that come with it that leads to stress incontinence. The type of delivery a woman goes through also aggravates stress incontinence. Forceps delivery of children and multiple deliveries are at high risk for stress incontinence. And of course, obese people are at higher risk of stress incontinence as their extra weight tends to give more pressure on abdominal organs.

There are different treatment options for stress incontinence that will be administered depending on the severity of your stress incontinence. For mild conditions, changes in behavioral conditions like healthy lifestyle changes, absorbent pads, scheduled toilet trips, monitoring of fluid consumption and pelvic floor muscles exercise.

Some doctors may suggest vaginal cones or urethral plugs which are inserted into the vagina to control stress incontinence. Chronic cases of stress incontinence are usually cured through surgery like inject-able bulking agents, sling procedure and implantation of inflatable artificial sphincter.

There is basically nothing to be done to help you prevent yourself from stress incontinence. You may only adapt healthy lifestyle changes to reduce the frequency and risk of stress incontinence like weight reduction, regular exercise and control over consumption of caffeine and alcohol.