What Can Cause Incontinence

Tonight we’re going to talk about bowel and bladder control primarily. So Dr. Graves and I both actually trained together at the university of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. And we’ve been each practicing for close to 10 years and we’ve had five years of urology training in residency and med school before that. And the topic tonight is something that we do have a lot of focus in and enjoy taking care of and have specialty in. So what causes incontinence of urine or stool there’s a huge host of things that something your doctor can figure out but sometimes it could be something you know is simple. If it’s mild like what you’re eating an excess amount of caffeine it can do that. Some people will be drinking an excessive amount of coffee, you know, I talk to some patients they’re drinking a pot of coffee a day. Other times it really has nothing to do with their diet, medications can do that certain diuretics can predispose to issues with urinary control. If you’re not as physically fit bedridden have other physical mobility issues sometimes that can deal with causing incontinence. And then other things can increase your risk like radiation of the pelvis before a prior injury to the spinal cord or your pelvic floor, certain pregnancy issues or childbirth like such as vaginal deliveries sometimes can have something to do with that. Complicated in terms of regards to different causes but something that is often easy to figure out when you see a physician.