A third of women are dealing with incontinence and many are suffering in silence. Instead of living with pain and discomfort, you should take back control of your body, treat your symptoms and live your life to the fullest.
In this guide we’ll cover:
- What urinary incontinence is
- Who is most at risk of involuntary bladder leaks
- What the symptoms of incontinence are
- How you can help alleviate symptoms and help take back control of your life
What is Urinary Incontinence?
There are several types of urinary incontinence:
Stress incontinence: This is where urine may leak out of the urethra as a result of physical movement, sexual intercourse, coughing, sneezing or laughing
Urge incontinence: Experiencing urine leakage as a result of an intense and sudden urge to pee
Overflow incontinence: This occurs when you’re unable to fully empty the bladder when using the restroom, meaning you’re prone to leakage as your
Total incontinence: Where your bladder is unable to store any urine and therefore leaks are an inevitable part of day to day life.
Mixed incontinence: This is where you experience more than one type of urinary incontinence — most often this refers to a combination of stress incontinence and urge incontinence.
What Causes Urinary Incontinence?
Stress incontinence occurs when the muscles and other tissues that support the pelvic floor start to weaken. A weakened pelvic floor can lead to a range of problems, from urine leakage to incontinence of both your bladder and bowels.
Urge incontinence is usually a result of overactive detrusor muscles, which control the bladder.
Overflow incontinence is often caused by a blockage in the bladder which can prevent the bladder from emptying itself properly.
Total incontinence can be caused by being born with a bladder defect, a spinal injury, or a small, tunnel-like hole that can form between the bladder and a nearby area.
Who is Most at Risk of Developing Urinary Incontinence?
Pregnant women or women that have given birth vaginally (especially if it's more than once) are most at risk of developing urinary incontinence (1). During pregnancy and childbirth, the sphincter and pelvic muscles stretch out and are weakened. The damage caused by this can lead to stress incontinence, which may begin soon after delivery or even years later.
In addition to this, you are more likely to experience urinary incontinence if:
- You are approaching or experiencing menopause
- You frequently exercise
- You are overweight
- You are a smoker
What are the symptoms of urinary incontinence
About 1 in 3 women suffer from urinary incontinence at some point in their lives and your risk of urinary incontinence generally increases with age.
If you are dealing with stress urinary incontinence, you may experience some or all of the following symptoms:
- Urine leakage when coughing, sneezing, lifting, bending, exercising, or during sex
If you are dealing with urge urinary incontinence, you may experience some or all of the following symptoms:
- An urge to pass urine triggered by a sudden position change, or even the sound of water running
- Passing urine during sex, particularly when reaching an orgasm
- Passing urine extremely frequently, this could include going to the bathroom several times in the night
If you are dealing with overflow urinary incontinence, you may experience some or all of the following symptoms:
- Feeling like your bladder is not empty, even when you’ve just urinated
- Leaking urine whilst asleep
- A urine stream that stops and starts
- Difficulty urinating even when you have the urge to go
How to Treat Urinary Incontinence
There are a variety of different ways that women can strengthen their pelvic floor muscles which in turn, can help to alleviate the symptoms of urinary incontinence. However, it is important to note that some of these treatments are not as safe as others.
These include:
Manual Kegels
Performing Kegels manually can be effective if you do them properly and stick at it over a long period of time. However, this is a long process and takes a lot of dedication. Note that performing Kegels incorrectly can do more harm than good for your pelvic floor and can make bladder weakness worse. This is where an FDA-cleared technology, like INNOVO can help.
Surgery
As an extreme measure, surgery can be undertaken in order to treat some types of urinary incontinence. Sling surgery is the most common surgery doctors use to treat urinary stress incontinence but can be expensive and lead to a long recovery time.
Invasive Solutions
Invasive solutions such as biofeedback devices work by helping you learn to relax your muscles but need to be inserted into the vagina, which can feel intrusive and uncomfortable. Without properly sterilizing invasive solutions before and after using them, this can also lead to infection.
Non-invasive Solutions
Non-invasive Kegel exercisers like INNOVO do not require any insertion into the vagina and are one of the safest ways to ensure your Kegel exercises are performed correctly and with no discomfort. To date, INNOVO has delivered more than 4.5 million safe and successful therapy sessions worldwide.
How to Treat urinary Incontinence Painlessly
Invasive solutions can be uncomfortable and quite possibly lead to infection and surgery is an extreme measure. Therefore, an optimal solution for women may be INNOVO - a non-invasive pelvic floor exerciser that does your pelvic floor exercises for you - perfectly.
We believe the best (and quickest) way to ensure you are doing your pelvic floor exercises properly is to have them done for you! INNOVO delivers 180 perfect Kegels per 30 minute session, so you don’t have to worry about whether you’re doing them correctly. And this all can happen from the comfort of your own home, while you sit back and relax. No more doctor visits, no more probes to insert and no prescription required.
INNOVO is FDA cleared to treat female stress urinary incontinence. It is a 100% non-invasive, safe solution that can be used from the comfort of your own home.
Using INNOVO for just 30 minutes a day/five days a week over 12 weeks has been proven to eliminate bladder leaks - delivering results in as little as 4 weeks.
Our clinical studies guided by the FDA show
- 80% of users saw a significant reduction in leaks after just 4 weeks1
- 87% of users were defined as either dry or almost dry after 12 weeks2
- 90% of users would recommend the therapy to others
Find out how INNOVO works here.