Non surgical management of stress incontinence

[sleepneeded81]

Hello, after a forceps delivery of my son 5 years ago have urine leakage with lifting/straining/jogging etc which severely limits my ability to play any sport or do many activities. I do not want to have a major surgical repair and daily pelvic floor exercises have made little impact. What other treatments are available and how effective are they please if there’s physical damage to the pelvic floor?

[Julie Jenks]

Hello
Thank you for your post.
For Stress inconinence (which it sounds like you have) pelvic floor exercises are the mainstay of non surgical treatment. They are very effective if adherence is high, that means at minimum three reps of fast and slow contractions (check out the regimen on line or via several fantastic Apps)for three months. If you can honestly say after theee months you’ve notice minimal benefit then surgical options are really the only thing that will give you a high degree of satisfaction (dry or almost dry). It’s a tough one because PFE need to be maintained for the effect to continue, so its a commitment but one that works if you really want to avoid surgery. The other evidence based, acknowledged contributor to stress incontinence is obesity. So if you need to loose weight, you’ll find this helpful for your incontinence.
Surgical options are varied and there are still options that avoid mesh if you are concerned about this. Your GP could refer you to a specialist to assess your incontinence, and give you the options to consider.

I hope this helps.
Bw

[Prof Christopher Chapple]

You can certainly consider an alternative which is the use of an injectable agent into the urethra. This is not as effective as the other surgical options, but you could certainly discuss this with a specialist and decide how you wish to proceed.