With urinary incontinence, you experience an involuntary leakage of urine due to loss of bladder control. People often avoid seeking help since they find it embarrassing — which means the condition is sometimes left untreated. This is very unfortunate since the underlying cause is often treatable, and treatment can improve quality of life dramatically. The symptoms and severity of urinary incontinence range from occasionally leaking urine when you cough or sneeze to having an urge to urinate that’s so sudden and strong that you don’t get to the toilet in time. There are different types of incontinence. Most common are stress, urge and overflow incontinence.
This is a sudden, intense urge to urinate, followed by an involuntary loss of urine. Your bladder muscle contracts and may give you a warning of only a few seconds to a minute to reach a toilet. With urge incontinence, you may need to urinate often, including throughout the night. Urge incontinence may be caused by urinary tract infections, bladder irritants (pharmaceuticals, foodstuff etc.), urinary retention, bowel problems, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, injury or nervous system damage associated with multiple sclerosis. If there's no known cause, urge incontinence is also called overactive bladder. Treatment depends on the severity of your symptoms, and ranges from behaviour advice and physical therapy to pharmaceuticals, catheterisation and surgery, often a combination of treatment is mostly effective.