Female Incontinence Treatment: An Overview
Today, there are more
female incontinence treatment options than ever before. The choice of female incontinence treatment depends on:
Different female incontinence treatment options may include:
- Behavioral Training
- Lifestyle changes, such as losing weight or cutting out certain foods
- Medications
- Devices, such as a pessary or urine seals
- Surgery.
No single female incontinence treatment works for everyone, but most women can be treated without urinary incontinence surgery.
Female Incontinence Treatment: Behavioral Training
Behavioral therapies for urinary incontinence treatment are noninvasive, free of side effects, and don't limit further urinary incontinence treatment options. These therapies include "retraining" the bladder and doing exercises called Kegels.
Bladder Retraining
Bladder retraining for female incontinence treatment helps the bladder to hold urine for longer periods of time.
Your doctor or nurse may ask you to keep a bladder diary, which is a daily record of:
- Fluid intake
- Trips to the bathroom
- Episodes of urine leakage
- An estimate of the amount of leakage.
By looking at this record, the doctor may see a pattern and suggest making it a point to use the bathroom at regular timed intervals, which is a habit called timed voiding. As you gain control with type this bladder retraining, you can extend the time between scheduled trips to the bathroom.