I’m Leaking Urine and Need Help Stopping It

A sudden sneeze or a good belly laugh are normal parts of life, but they can cause something you’d rather not experience as a woman: sudden urine leakage. It’s unexpected, unwelcome, and embarrassing. 

The good news is that there are many treatments that make a real difference in reducing the instances of leakage, even to zero. Dr. Kevin Hooker and our caring team at Lake Havasu OB/GYN Care treat women in every age and stage of life, whether you’ve just had a baby or you’re postmenoapusal.  

Women experience different kinds of urine leakage

It’s important to know that there are three different types of female incontinence:

1. Stress incontinence happens when you laugh or lift something heavy and it causes you to release a small amount of urine. Weak pelvic floor muscles put you at risk for this condition, often caused by pregnancy, obesity, or injury.

2. If you have an overactive bladder, you may suffer from urge incontinence, where all of a sudden you have an urge to urinate that you just can’t control and end up leaking as you’re rushing to the bathroom. Conditions like diabetes can increase your risk, but most women experience it due to aging and simply having weak bladder muscles.

3. Overflow incontinence occurs when you can’t quite empty your bladder completely when you go to the bathroom. Afterwards, you notice involuntary dribbling, and you might also notice that you need to go to the bathroom several times during the night. 

A history of urinary tract infections (UTIs), being 65 or older, living with pelvic organ prolapse (weakened or damaged muscles can no longer support the bladder, uterus, and cervix), or taking certain sleep aids, antidepressants, high blood pressure medications, or diuretics up your risk. 

Unfortunately, you can suffer from more than one type of incontinence at a given time, or mixed incontinence, so it’s easy to understand why most women who seek solutions for incontinence want prompt relief.

What are my urinary incontinence treatment options?

Dr. Hooker has a wide range of treatment options for incontinence sufferers. As he considers your treatment plan, he takes a comprehensive medical history, learns when your leakage problems started to pinpoint which type or types of incontinence you’re experiencing, and answers all of your questions. 

There are home treatment options you can use, in-office treatments, and surgical solutions available. Some patients use a combination of treatments. 

1. Change up your lifestyle

Try adopting habits that ease incontinence symptoms. These include losing weight if you’re overweight, ditching the cigarettes, and doing pelvic floor exercises, or Kegels. 

You can also wear pads available in stores to combat leaks, or as a backup method while you’re trying other options. It’s also helpful to avoid diuretic beverages like coffee and soda, and to reduce your liquid consumption before bed. 

2. Bladder training 

With this approach, you keep a journal where you record your urinary habits — how much you drink each day, how often you get the urge to urinate, and when you have leaks. 

After you’ve recorded this data for some weeks, you and Dr. Hooker discuss the trends you see. 

With the goal of gradually stretching out the time between when you need a trip to the bathroom by just waiting five minutes more, then 10, and so on, you also stretch your bladder and find that you can go longer between visits. 

3. Urgency suppression

This method uses techniques like meditation, doing Kegel exercises, and distraction to put off urination and set up new patterns. 

4. Double voiding

You urinate, wait a few minutes, and urinate again, to ensure that you have fully excreted all of your urine. 

5. Noninvasive in-office treatment

MonaLisa TouchⓇ treatments also help women with incontinence. Dr. Hooker gently inserts a small handheld device into your vagina for just a few minutes, and it delivers gentle heat to your vaginal tissues. This heat fuels collagen and elastin production, which remedies stress incontinence. 

6. Pessaries

Dr. Hooker can fit you for a pessary, a small rubber or silicone ring inserted into your vagina that supports your pelvic organs, and is especially helpful in managing stress urinary incontinence. 

7. Surgical solutions

Dr. Hooker may recommend either obliterative (vaginal narrowing) or reconstructive (repairing damage) surgery to solve your incontinence. 

Vaginal and laparoscopic abdominal procedures allow Dr. Hooker to place your bladder properly and strengthen your pelvic floor.  

8. BotoxⓇ

Botox is known mostly for minimizing wrinkles, but a series of injections into your bladder wall (after a numbing agent is used) lessen the bladder spasms that contribute to leaks, especially those caused by overactive bladder and urge incontinence. 

Don’t endure any more leakage discomfort, embarrassment, and inconvenience. You deserve relief — on all fronts.

Call our office to schedule a consultation with Dr. Hooker, or book one through our website.