Stress Urinary Incontinence

Are There Any Treatment Available?

Yes. It can be divided into conservative and surgical treatment. There are at present, no effective drugs in treating stress urinary incontinence.

Conservative / Non-surgical Treatment

• Pelvic Floor Exercises: The physiotherapist will teach you how to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. You have to do it everyday in your own time.
• Vaginal Cones: To insert cones of increasing weight into the vagina and contract your pelvic floor muscles in order to retain these cones.
• Electrical Stimulation: Electrical current is used to stimulate your pelvic floor muscles to contract. It is for women who have poor result from pelvic floor exercises. The improvement from the above treatment is observed only after 2 - 3 months. If there is no improvement, you may consider surgical intervention.

Surgical Treatment

The objective of the operation is to restore urinary continence. If you also have an associated uterovaginal prolapse, you may be advised to have a hysterectomy and pelvic floor repair as well.

The main types of surgery are:

1. Tension-free Vaginal Tape (TVT & TVT-O) - a relatively new method with very good success rate of 94% since KKH started using it in 1998. It has become the commonest type of continence surgery performed at KKH. It is relatively less painful and requires a short hospitalisation of 2 to 3 days.
2. Burch Colposuspension - It has been superseded by the TVT in recent years but is still a reliable procedure used in treating female stress urinary incontinence. It has an 85% success rate in the first year and up to 70% in 10 years. It requires a 7 cm abdominal incision and an average of 4 days stay in the hospital
3. Other surgeries include needle bladder neck suspension, suburethral slings and collagen injections etc.

Conclusion

Stress urinary incontinence can be cured or improved. Please do not suffer in silence. See your doctor early for assessment and advice.