It's an embarrassing problem, "said
Nurse Practitioner Ashley Ford, "we don't want to tell people that we are
wet."
Embarrassing but happening to more people
than you think, people of all ages. One cough, sneeze, or too much laughter and
it slips out.
"Some women have gotten to the point
where they believe that as you get older you are just going to leak. That's not
true, it's not normal, there are definitely things we can do to stop
that," said Ford.
Ford said about 2/3 of women suffer from
incontinence and never even mention it to their physician unless asked about
it.
"You have stress incontinence and urge
incontinence," said Ford. "Obviously, urge is when you feel the urge
to go but you can't make it to the bathroom. Stress is when you have that
increased abdominal pressure, like coughing, laughing, or sneezing."
The only way to stop incontinence is by
strengthening your pelvic floor muscles, which is also known as doing your
kegels. However, Ford said 50% of women can't tell if they are doing it right,
but In-tone, an FDA approved device will solve that problem.
"This device works in two ways, said
Ford." One, it gives you a small amount of intra vaginal electrical
stimulation, that causes both short and long muscle fiber stimulation. So,
essentially, it is exercising that muscle for you. As you are feeling that
stimulation you are better able to isolate that muscle group. The second way
this works is, you literally have a therapist in your hand telling you and
showing you how to do these exercises."
It's a twelve minute program done in the
privacy of your own home, once a day, for 90 days. After that, it's all about
maintenance therapy to ensure you no longer leak.
Ford said, "Unlike your medicines, oral
anti-cholinergics, you don't have that risk of having dry mouth or constipation.
Unlike surgery, which has the adverse events of possibly having a reaction to
the mesh or having to repeat your surgery in the future, there is no risk with
this."
Patients are seeing positive results after
two weeks and after six weeks they are completely dry.
The
only side effect that the FDA reports is that it may cause women to have an
orgasm. There are also some people that aren't good candidates for this device;
such as people that have a pacemaker, copper I.U.D. and you must be at least
six weeks out from delivery or any type of bladder surgery.
Copyright 2012 WDAM. All rights reserved.
