The Help Tabloid

This factsheet is for women who have urinary incontinence, or people who would like information about it. Incontinence is an unintentional leakage of urine that causes you problems. It’s about twice as common in women than in men. As explain by quantities of care homes in Kent, elderly urinary incontinence can take several forms. Some people may only leak urine occasionally, others may constantly dribble urine, while still others experience a complete lack of both bladder and bowel control. Multiple types of incontinence help explain these various experiences. There are a number of lifestyle changes that can help with urinary incontinence, like cutting down on your caffeine intake, as this can irritate your bladder; changing the amount of water you drink, losing weight. Your doctor may prescribe medicines to treat your overactive bladder, urge incontinence or mixed incontinence if bladder training hasn’t worked.

These work by making your bladder muscles less likely to contract involuntarily (when you don’t mean them to). Some examples of these medicines are oxybutynin (eg Cystrin), tolterodine (eg Detrusitol) and duloxetine (eg Yentreve). There are some common but usually mild side-effects, which can include dry mouth, constipation, blurred vision and drowsiness. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may be useful if you have been through the menopause and have an overactive bladder.