I am a full time teacher and am on my feet 5-6 hours a day.

I am a full time teacher and am on my feet 5-6 hours a day. I perform aerobic activity 2-3 times a week. I have experienced both complete lost of urine and leakage while exercising. I recently, experienced a small amount of leakage while walking. Before exercising I empty my bladder, which may or may not be a large amount of urine. What type of incontinent do I have and what should I do?

It sounds as though you have either urge, or stress incontinence. Stress incontinence is when you leak urine with physical activity. Urge incontinence is urine leakage after urgency and is part of overactive bladder. This is when you experience symptoms of urgency – a sudden and strong desire to go to the bathroom, frequency – going to the bathroom more than 8 times in a day, nocturia which is awakening up at night to urinate or wet the bed while asleep. Many people also experience day and nighttime urinary incontinence which is urine leakage on the why to the bathroom, after sudden urgency or when you cough, laugh or sneeze or exercise. I suggest you learn about behavioral treatment programs which include pelvic muscle exercises as well as bladder training for urgency and frequency. Pelvic muscle exercises strengthen muscles that support the bladder and the urethra. These exercises have been shown to decrease urinary leakage. Bladder retraining is controlling urgency using strategies that can help relax the bladder and delay voiding. I would also suggest dietary modifications. There are certain foods and beverages that contain ingredients that can cause bladder irritability. I list these on my website and they include any foods and drinks that contain caffeine such as coffee, tea, chocolate, soft drinks. Also we find that spicy foods, citrus foods, juices and tomato based products may also trigger urinary urgency/frequency and incontinence. There are also many medications that can also help these symptoms. They include a skin patch called Oxytrol, and 5 pills called Detrol LA, Ditropan XL, Sanctura, Vesicare and Enablex. You may be interested in books that can be good resources. The first book is called Managing & Treating Urinary Incontinence. This is a nice review of evaluation, treatment and management of urinary incontinence. It has a chapter on treatments for persons with your symptoms. The second book is Overcoming Overactive Bladder which also has a great deal of information. You can obtain these books from the website or on Amazon.com by putting in these term “urinary incontinence” and overactive bladder. Here are some links on my website that may be helpful. 1. Overactive Bladder: http://www.seekwellness.com/incontinence/overactive_bl adder.htm 2. OAB treatments: http://www.seekwellness.com/incontinence/oab_treatment s.htm 3. Stress UI: http://www.seekwellness.com/incontinence/causes.htm#st ress 4. Femtone Vaginal Weights Info and order: http://www.seekwellness.com/commerce/order_femtone.htm