So you leak urine sometimes. That much has been established fairly easily. What you don’t know is what type of urinary incontinence you have. Determining what type of incontinence you have can put you on the right road to recovery. Below are the symptoms of the 3 most common types of urinary leakage: urge urinary incontinence, stress urinary incontinence, and mixed urinary incontinence.
URGE URINARY INCONTINENCE (Otherwise known as “The gotta go’s, oops I went”)
- Frequent strong, sudden urge to urinate
- Regularly going to the bathroom 8 or more times in a 24 hour period
- Getting up 2 or more times during the night to go to the bathroom
- Leaking all of a sudden for no good reason
- Knowing where all the good bathrooms in town are and how long it takes to get there, because you never know when you will have to go “just in case”
- Limiting the amount of fluid you drink so there is less urine to leak
- Once you pull in the driveway or put the key in the lock it is a mad dash to get to the bathroom
Even if you do not leak in these situations, but you still experience them, you may have overactive bladder.
STRESS URINARY INCONTINENCE (Otherwise known as “pee pee when you hee hee”)
- Losing urine with physical activities such as lifting or exercising
- Losing urine when you cough, laugh, or sneeze
- Losing urine when you stand up or sit down
MIXED INCONTINENCE
- Experiencing most or all of the symptoms of overactive bladder and stress urinary incontinence
