URINARY INCONTINENCE IN WOMEN OVER 50: THE CAUSE
Posted on April 9, 2009, under General health.
Sometimes, however, the cause can’t be found on the DIAPPERS list. For instance, if you have a chronic cough because you’re a heavy smoker, the smoking can be directly responsible for your urinary incontinence. If you stop smoking, your cough will gradually disappear along with your urinary incontinence.
In addition to your doctor’s treatments, Kegel exercises can be helpful for treating incontinence. These exercises involve contracting and releasing the pelvic muscles in the same way as you control the flow of urine. Try to do these exercises several times a day, starting at holding for 10 seconds and working up to as long as possible.
If you have urge incontinence or mixed incontinence, retraining your bladder can be helpful. Try to hold your urine for at least an hour before urinating; or, if you tend to wait too long before urinating, try to urinate every hour, which will help to reduce accidents.
For women with urge or mixed incontinence, certain medications, such as antidepressants and bladder antispasmodics, can be helpful in preventing incontinence.
Every woman has to become educated about incontinence and stop being ashamed so that the proper treatment can be found—or at least the proper way to cope and live well with the problem. Here’s how one woman did it.
One of my patients is an active 60-year-old woman who stopped going to church and to places like Atlantic City because she was embarrassed that she might become incontinent. She began wearing a diaper, but she remained self-conscious.
Whenever she saw me for her yearly checkup, she never mentioned the incontinence even when I asked her. One time, she was waiting in the examination room for me. As I came in, she darted past me to the bathroom down the hall. When she reached the bathroom, she accidentally urinated on the floor and herself. She started to cry and told me and my nurse how ashamed she felt. She even offered to clean the bathroom.
My examination revealed that she had a urinary tract infection. She was also taking a diuretic every day to reduce swelling in her ankles, and she had had six children, which had left her pelvic floor quite weak. I referred her to a urologist, and together we decided that taking a different diuretic medication, getting her urinary tract infection treated, doing regular Kegel exercises, and keeping a urination diary was all she needed to do.
Two weeks later she returned to my office and told me that she wasn’t having any more accidents, that I was the best doctor in the world and that—by the way—she had hit the jackpot on the slot machines in Atlantic City.
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