Why do I have Urinary Incontinence?
Urinary incontinence is not caused by a certain illness. Several different conditions can cause urinary incontinence.
How your urinary incontinence appears determines what explanation is behind your nuisances.
1) Overactive Bladder
Sudden urge for urination where you may not reach the toilet and frequent urination.
The bladder is a bowl where your urine is kept. Normally, the muscles of the bladder are calm while the bladder is filled with urine. When the bladder is full the brain sends a message to the bladder to contract – this is felt as the urge to urinate. Then when you visit the toilet, you can use the muscles of the bladder to squeeze the bladder and thereby empty it. Thus, normally you decide for yourself when you want to urinate – you control it.
Sudden urge for urination where you do not reach the toilet in time is caused by involuntary contractions of the muscles of the bladder. The muscles of the bladder contracts without you being able to restrain it. If you have an overactive bladder, you only have a short warning that it is time. The bladder quickly empties without you being able to control it and sometimes without you reaching the toilet.
However, why does the muscles of the bladder suddenly contract without your control? It is not certain why. Since the condition primarily occurs with women after menopause, it is suspected that changes in age matter.
Other causes of overactive bladder can be:
- inflammation or stone in the bladder
- brain haemorrhage
- constipation
- overweight
- cancer in the abdomen or in the bladder
- diabetes
- your medication
- nervous disorders
2) Stress-Triggered Urinary Incontinence
Urination in connection with physical activity like cough, sneezing, laughter or running.
Most people can feel when the bladder is filled. In that situation you ‘hold back’ until you go to the toilet. It is the sphincter that makes it possible for you to ‘hold back’. The sphincter is situated right below and around the bladder. The largest part of the sphincter is made out of the floor of the pelvis. You can feel the pelvic floor work when you squeeze – for example when you stop the ray of urine during urination.
If you have a weak sphincter, you cannot ‘hold back’ and the urine leaks at the slightest pressure on the bladder – for example when you cough, laugh, sneeze or exercise.
The pelvic muscles becoming loose after one or more births can cause a weak sphincter. Many births and giving birth to large children increases the risk for loose pelvic muscles and thereby of having urinary incontinence.
Some women experience that the uterus sinks down into the vagina. If this happens, the bladder is also pulled down into vagina and thereby stress-triggered urinary incontinence arises. The problem can also be caused by the lack of female sex hormone – oestrogen. Because oestrogen makes sure that, the pelvic floor is strong.
Other causes of stress-triggered urinary incontinence can be:
- constipation
- overweight
- cancer in the abdomen
- your medication
3) A mixture of the two first
Both overactive bladder and stress-triggered urination.
If you have involuntary contractions of the bladder muscles together with a weak sphincter around the bladder, you may experience both a sudden urge to urination where you do not reach a toilet and that you ‘leak’ in connection with physical activity.
A common cause of lack of the female hormone – oestrogen – possibly combined with a weak pelvis after one or more births.
As you can see, there are many different explanations to why you have urinary incontinence. A few serious illnesses may be the explanation to why you suffer from urinary incontinence; precisely because of this, you should contact the doctor so that you can have a thorough examination.