Your Guide to Urinary Incontinence: Understanding the different types of urinary incontinence
Many people hear the word incontinence and think this means fully wetting their pants. This is actually untrue.
Urinary incontinence is the involuntary loss of urine. Nothing in the definition puts a limit on the volume. That means that any involuntary loss of urine qualifies as incontinence, whether it be a drop when you clear your throat or a full, pants changing flood after trying to jump on the trampoline.
If you’re experiencing any involuntary loss of urine, it’s incontinence, and it can be fixed.
What are the types of incontinence?
There are a few different types of incontinence: stress incontinence, urge incontinence, mixed incontinence, overflow and functional incontinence.
Stress Incontinence
Stress incontinence is what most people think about when they think about incontinence. This is the type of urine leakage that occurs when you cough, sneeze, laugh, jump, run and lift heavy things. This happens when the muscle coordination in the pelvic floor is not working properly.
Some people think this occurs when the pelvic floor muscles are too weak but that’s not always the case. Sometimes urine leakage is due to the muscles being too weak, but many times they are due to the muscles being too tight or overactive.
Urge Incontinence
Urge incontinence is the type of urine leakage that occurs when you feel a strong and sudden urge to go to the bathroom, you are rushing to get there but can’t get there on time. Many people think this only happens when you have an overactive bladder but this can actually happen to anyone for a number of reasons including neurological issues, bladder irritants, constipation, tight muscles in the abdomen, pelvic floor and hips, and medication side effects.
Mixed Incontinence
Mixed incontinence is when you are experiencing both stress incontinence and urge incontinence and is very common in people who are experiencing pelvic floor overactivity.
Overflow Incontinence
Overflow incontinence is a type of leakage that occurs when you are unable to sense that your bladder is full and the bladder can no longer hold urine inside. This often occurs without urge and people don’t always notice this until they go to the bathroom and see urine on their underwear. Sometimes this occurs due to outside pressure to the bladder like an abdominal mass or prolapse. Sometimes this is due to neurological conditions or impaired detrusor (bladder muscle) activity like in multiple sclerosis, diabetes or spinal cord injuries. Sometimes this can occur as a medication side effect or birth injury. This type of incontinence can also occur when the muscles of the pelvic floor are overact and don’t allow us to emptying fully, leaving more and more urine to build up in the bladder.
Functional Incontinence
This is a form of incontinence that occurs due to a medical condition or environmental factors. This may include a neurological condition like Parkinson’s Disease or MS, an orthopedic condition like a joint replacement, a cognitive condition like dementia, or an environmental factor like obstacles being in the way.
If you’re experiencing any of these forms of incontinence and are in the Columbus, Ohio area, please reach out and ask your questions. We’d be happy to help you resolve these issues so that you can get back to living the life you love without worrying about frustrating or embarrassing urine leakage. To learn more about the pelvic floor and what it does for us, click here.
