Jane, in her mid-thirties, loves how kickboxing is helping restore her figure after she gave birth to her adorable son. What she doesn’t love is the amount of urine she leaks every time she kicks or boxes. In fact, the leakage happens so often that she is thinking of stopping her exercise program altogether.  Here’s what Jane doesn’t know.  She has stress urinary incontinence (also called stress incontinence), the most common form of urinary incontinence, which affects 26 percent of women over age 18 at some point in their lives. Childbirth is a major cause of stress incontinence. Most women with urine leakage wait more than six years to get help. Yet research shows that urinary incontinence in 8 out of 10 women with the condition can be improved. How long will Jane wait?

What is Stress Urinary Incontinence?

As the name suggests, stress urinary incontinence, or SUI, happens anytime you put stress on your body, such as when you cough, sneeze, laugh, or exercise. Even standing up can cause leakage. Specifically, this type of leakage occurs whenever your intra-abdominal pressure suddenly increases. SUI happens when the pelvic floor muscles that support the bladder and urethra are weak or because the urethral sphincter, which normally keeps urine from leaking, isn’t as strong as it should be.

How the story ends

At first, Jane tried physical therapy and medication for her SUI, but in the end she opted for surgery. Her doctor did further testing and decided Jane was the perfect candidate for the surgery. Jane has a good chance for a happy ending since studies show a 90-95% cure rate with surgery when patients are carefully selected, as Jane was.