Causes of Incontinence
No matter what the root cause is behind it, incontinence can disrupt your life and it can begin at any stage of your life. Men, women and children can all experience this condition and in the event a person is in a social setting when it happens, it can cause emotional stress.
When children deal with this condition, the majority of the time it’s usually caused during the sleep cycle by an unawareness of the body’s signal to urinate. Kids may not be as in tune with their body and may sleep through the signal. It can also be caused by consuming too much liquid before going to bed.
Since children’s bladders are much smaller than an adult’s, they can’t always hold the urine or make it to the toilet before an accident. Trauma, anxiety and health problems can also cause incontinence in children.
Sometimes, kids don’t want to interrupt what they’re doing to use the bathroom and as a result, the bladder gets too full and causes leakage. Unless it’s health related, most incontinence problems in children resolve on their own.
For women, the way the urinary system is made can make them more prone to having problems with incontinence. Getting older and going through menopause can lead to an inability to hold urine.
So can being pregnant or going through natural childbirth because of the stress put on the pelvic floor. Physical impairments such as diseases like multiple sclerosis can cause incontinence. Being injured by a stroke or damage caused to the bladder can lead to incontinence.
Many women never experience incontinence until after having a hysterectomy but it can cause incontinence because the pelvic nerves can become affected. Because of this, most surgeons will do a bladder tuck at the same time a hysterectomy is performed, but some will not.
Gaining a lot of extra weight and any condition (such as smoking) that produces a deep cough can lead to leakage. Physical, emotional and mental stress can bring on a form of incontinence known as transient or temporary incontinence. Heavy lifting and taking certain medications can also cause trouble holding urine.
Men can get the same type of incontinence as women but the causes are different. Men can struggle with urine leakage because of a urethra blockage, sphincter muscle failure, diabetes and prostrate problems. Though it’s not as common as it is in women, men can also experience leakage due to a urinary tract infection.
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