Drops, dribbles, leaks, no matter what you call it urinary incontinence is an all too common condition for men and women. Generally speaking, urinary incontinence is when you release a little bit of urine involuntarily (that is, without meaning to). Incontinence, however, is just a symptom of unhealthy pelvic floor muscles. Healthy muscles are strong and flexible; your Pelvic floor muscles are no different than the muscles of your arms, legs, or back. Use them or lose them.
When you are not using and working the muscles of your pelvic floor, you run the risk of seeing them wither. When your muscles are not being worked out, they are going to lose their firm supple shape. In the case of your pelvic floor muscles, this strength and volume is necessary to control the release and flow of urine through the urethra.
Will My Incontinence Just Go Away? - Top 3 Concerns about Just Waiting
If you sit on your couch all day eating popcorn and watching Netflix, the likelihood you are able to get up and run a marathon is pretty low. It might even be worse when it comes to your pelvic floor. Besides just the reduction in strength of your pelvic floor muscles, if you are not working your pelvic floor muscles out, you risk putting your healthy in even more danger.
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If you're waiting on your bladder leaks to just go away on their own, they likely won't. A Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist can help you love your life. |
Incontinence Gets Worse
If you are not working on your pelvic floor, it is possible for your incontinence to get worse. If you start with some control, but you have leaks when you cough or sneeze, you may start to have bladder leaks when you stand-up, sit down, or walk. This is an indication that your pelvic floor muscles have gotten even less healthy, and with all of the daily functions your pelvic floor muscles support, your unhealthy pelvic floor is putting you at risk for pain.
Back Pain or Pelvic Pain
If you ignore your incontinence thinking it will just go away, you run the risk of more severe pelvic floor dysfunction. Pain is an all too common symptom of pelvic floor dysfunction. In particular pain of your pelvis and low back. There are several potential reasons incontinence and pain can occur, but one of the common reasons is the overuse of the wrong muscles. When you have an unhealthy pelvic floor, when you are suffering from urinary incontinence you are forced to recruit support from other muscles. It you are not strong enough to lift your couch you get a friend to help you; if you cannot lift your pelvic floor muscles to stop the flow of urine, you have to recruit other muscles to help you. Often times you work these muscles incorrectly, which means they are at risk for strains and overuse, which presents as pain.
But pain is not the only other pelvic floor dysfunction you have to consider, if you cannot lift your pelvic floor muscles properly, you are also at risk for pelvic organ prolapse. A condition in which your insides don’t stay inside.
Falls Risk from Incontinence
Pelvic Floor Muscles play a role in many of your daily activities including toileting and sexual function. Because they are the muscles at the base of your core, they are also responsible for helping propel you up and out of a chair, to aid in your walking, and to help stabilize you while you stand. If your pelvic floor muscles are compromised and you are waiting to see if your incontinence will just go away, you are risking a fall.
Falls themselves are dangerous and can lead to serious injury, but if you are weak and suffering from pelvic floor dysfunction you are putting yourself at greater risk for hip fractures and difficulty getting up from a fall.
Incontinence does not generally go away on its own. It is often a condition that people suffer from for an extended period needlessly.
Does Stress Incontinence Go Away?
Stress incontinence is not likely to go away on its own. But there are a couple of unique situations where stress incontinence may resolve on its own. These events, however, are unique life circumstances.
Stress Incontinence After Prostate Surgery
As a general rule, stress urinary incontinence after prostate surgery will resolve 12 months after surgery. But that means 12 months of not moving the way you want, worrying about laughing, and having to use costly incontinence products.
Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy is not just women’s health physical therapy. A PT trained to perform pelvic floor physical therapy can help both men and women. And when it comes to helping men after prostate surgery, the vast majority of stress incontinence episodes are resolved within 3 months and there is nearly 100% resolution of stress incontinence within 6 months. That means while your buddy is still leaking urine, you can run, jump, and laugh with confidence.
Stress Incontinence After Pregnancy
When you are pregnant, you have a significant amount of extra weight sitting on your pelvic floor. This is going to strain these muscles and leave it more difficult for you to maintain your continence. (Pregnancy is a common time for women to suffer from their first episode of incontinence.) Additionally, after the havoc a vaginal birth puts on your pelvic floor, it is common for women to suffer from stress urinary incontinence. In both of these cases, it is normal to have episodes of stress incontinence up to 6 weeks after the birth of the child, but they should resolve after this point.
A Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist, especially one with knowledge of women’s health in particular, should still be consulted. In France, it is common for all women to get physical therapy during and after pregnancy because of the physical transformation your body has to go through. If you are a young healthy woman, stress incontinence may resolve after your pregnancy, but that doesn’t mean that your underlying pelvic floor dysfunction is resolved. The muscles of your pelvic floor may still needs so support and a pelvic floor PT is the best person to help you make that determination (your OB/GYN is not likely to do the proper manual muscle testing to assess your pelvic floor muscle dysfunction, she has too many other concerns).
How Does Urinary Incontinence Go Away?
Urinary incontinence is not likely to go away on its own. Any if the symptoms resolve, you may still be suffering from underlying pelvic floor dysfunction. So if urinary incontinence will not go away on its own, what can be done in the treatment of urinary incontinence?
Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy to Treat Urinary Incontinence
The least invasive option over the long term is pelvic floor physical therapy. Yes, the internal exam necessary during your pelvic floor PT evaluation may seem a little scary, it really isn’t Your pelvic floor PT isn’t going to put you through anything unnecessarily, and they are there to make sure you get the best possible care to resolve your symptoms. In the case of a healthy body aware person, pelvic floor PT may resolve your stress in continence in only a couple of sessions, but even for someone who needs a longer course of treatment, 4-5 sessions are generally sufficient to show significant improvement.
Medication to Treat Urinary Incontinence
Medication is a common first option for a lot of patients suffering from bladder leaks. While it may not be as physically invasive as an internal muscle exam from your pelvic floor PT, you are putting a foreign substance into your body EVERY SINGLE DAY. When it comes to medication for incontinence, it is a treatment, but it is not a cure. If you choose to go on medication, without additional treatment, it is possible you will have to stay on medication permanently.
Surgery to Treat Urinary Incontinence
Even minimally invasive pelvic floor surgery means you are going to be cut open. With surgery there are risks for infection, but in the case of pelvic floor surgery for incontinence, the bigger risk is that it doesn’t work. Up to 20% of pelvic floor surgeries require a second surgery to fix the problem.
With pelvic floor physical therapy having a high success rate, a low burden on your time, and few if any side effects (none have been reported in any known research on Pelvic Floor PT for incontinence), it is definitely a treatment option you should consider as a first line in your treatment of urinary incontinence.
