Urinary Incontinence : Urinary incontinence (UI) is loss of bladder control. Symptoms can range from mild leaking to uncontrollable wetting. It can happen to anyone, but it becomes more common with age. Women experience UI twice as often as men.
Most bladder control problems happen when muscles are too weak or too active. If the muscles that keep your bladder closed are weak, you may have accidents when you sneeze, laugh or lift a heavy object. This is stress incontinence. If bladder muscles become too active, you may feel a strong urge to go to the bathroom when you have little urine in your bladder. This is urge incontinence or overactive bladder. There are other causes of incontinence, such as prostate problems and nerve damage.
Treatment
Treatment depends on the type of problem you have and what best fits your lifestyle. It may include simple exercises, medicines, special devices or procedures prescribed by your doctor, or surgery.
Medications
Medications are used in conjunction with behavioral techniques. Drugs commonly used to treat incontinence include:
• Anticholinergics. These prescription medications calm an overactive bladder, so they may be helpful for urge incontinence. Several drugs fall under this category, including oxybutynin (Ditropan), tolterodine (Detrol), darifenacin (Enablex), fesoterodine (Toviaz), solifenacin (Vesicare) and trospium (Sanctura). Possible side effects of these medications include dry mouth, constipation, blurred vision and flushing.
• Topical estrogen. Applying low-dose, topical estrogen in the form of a vaginal cream, ring or patch may help tone and rejuvenate tissues in the urethra and vaginal areas. This may reduce some of the symptoms of incontinence.
• Imipramine. Imipramine (Tofranil) is a tricyclic antidepressant that may be used to treat mixed — urge and stress — incontinence.
• Duloxetine. The antidepressant medication duloxetine (Cymbalta) is sometimes used to treat stress incontinence.