Is female incontinence curable?
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Nov 6, 2017
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Physician Assistant Elyse Weber talks more about whether female incontinence is curable.
Is female incontinence curable?
Female incontinence, saying it's curable is a very strong word. It's manageable and treatable. It's not like another disease state where you can cure it overnight with a medication, but you can manage it. If you stop some things, that could come back. So it's manageable is the way to say that. We talked about different types of incontinence before, stress incontinence is that weakness of the urethra, that's the tube you pee out of, you lose that muscle strength underneath there, and that urine drops out.
We have different treatment options for that that we offer to patients. One's always do nothing. We have patients do expectant management, see how much it's bothering you. Once it becomes bothersome, we can offer you further treatment. Other treatment options is physical therapy, pelvic floor muscle therapy is offered, talked about that well. It's a student-teacher relationship, they teach you how to control those pelvic floor muscles, strengthening those underneath the urethra so all that urine not to leak out. That gives you some good success at times, especially at the beginning of some incontinence and it's just started, it can really help you get some strength back.
Thirdly, there is an option for placing a support underneath the urethra. That is an out-patient procedure and a minor procedure that you can talk about with your physician at a later date. For urge incontinence, that's the bladder spasms, that bladder has a big muscle around it that spasms and makes you go urgently, leak on the way to the restroom, get up at night, we have options for that as well. One is that physical therapy, again. Those physical therapists can teach you how to control those bladder muscles, give you more time between urinations, and give you more time to get to the restroom. So when you get that urge, they can teach you some breathing and abdominal exercises to give you more time to get there, and that can be very helpful for your daytime symptoms.