What are the different types of urinary incontinence?
Urinary incontinence -- accidental urine leakage -- may be an occasional, slight problem, or it can become a severe health condition. The two most common types of urinary incontinence are:
Stress incontinence: Urine leakage occurs when you cough, laugh, or sneeze, or when physical activity puts pressure on the bladder.
Urgency incontinence, or overactive bladder: Urine leaks when you have a strong urge to urinate.
Mixed urinary incontinence: You have stress and urge incontinence.
Other types of urinary incontinence include overflow incontinence, functional incontinence, and transient incontinence, which is temporary because it’s caused by medications or a condition like a urinary tract infection.
What causes urinary incontinence?
Your brain may not send the proper signals telling you it’s time to urinate, or nerves that control bladder muscles may not work. Muscles that hold in urine or that support the bladder may weaken. Bladder muscles may contract too much or not enough, due to problems in the muscles or nerves.
Chronic urinary incontinence caused by weak muscles often arises due to:
- Childbirth: Vaginal delivery may affect muscles and nerves used for bladder control
- Pelvic organ prolapse: Pelvic floor muscles that support the bladder weaken, and organs may drop towards the vagina
- Menopause: Less estrogen causes deterioration of bladder lining
- Hysterectomy: Removing the uterus may affect pelvic floor muscles
- Age-related changes: Bladder muscles weaken and involuntary bladder contractions increase
How is urinary incontinence treated?
Following a thorough examination to determine the underlying cause of your urinary incontinence, Dr. C. may recommend one of these treatments:
- Exercises to strengthen pelvic floor muscles
- Bladder training
- Medications
- Collagen injections
- Botox® injections
- Urethral insert
- Transvaginal tape procedures
- Laparoscopic bladder suspension
- Surgery to restore pelvic floor muscles and insert slings
How does the InTone® biofeedback device treat urinary incontinence?
InTone is a medical device used to treat stress, urge, and mixed urinary incontinence in women. The device is inserted into your vagina and used to help strengthen some muscles and to relax overactive bladder muscles.
InTone therapy achieves results using these techniques:
- Inflates to provide resistance to muscles
- Voice-guided exercise program tells when to contract and relax muscles
- Visual biofeedback shows whether you’re holding muscle contractions long enough
- Ensures muscles relax to avoid constant contraction
- High frequency electrical stimulation triggers full muscle contraction
- Low frequency electrical stimulation relaxes bladder muscle spasms
You use InTone at home, where each session lasts about 12 minutes. You should use InTone six days per week for about 10-14 weeks to resolve urinary incontinence, then once or twice a week for long-term maintenance.
