Bladder Surgery for Incontinence

Bladder surgery for incontinence is a way to repair a damaged, dropped, or weak bladder. Urinary incontinence is a symptom in which you don’t have bladder control and may experience a sudden involuntary release of urine. Your urological condition may also cause bladder pain, frequent painful urination, and blood in urine. Persistent incontinence causes include urinary tract infections, an enlarged prostate, or an obstruction such as a tumor or stone. Incontinence for the elderly occurs due to changes in the strength of bladder muscles as we age.

Bladder surgery for incontinence is common among females. The female bladder is very susceptible to incontinence; incontinence in women can occur after having children when the muscle strains of childbirth can weaken or damage nerves or muscles of the bladder, urethra, and other surrounding tissue.

Sometimes urinary incontinence in a female requires cystocele surgery to repair the bladder that has drooped into the vagina. A prolapsed bladder, or a dropped bladder or fallen bladder, needs to be lifted back into its proper position. A bladder procedure that uses a bladder sling created from your body’s tissue, synthetic material, or mesh can be installed around the bladder neck and urethra to help the muscles elevate the bladder and keep the urethra closed until it’s necessary to urinate. When the urethra’s muscles are weak, atrophied or damaged a urethral bulking agent can be injected around the urethra to narrow the urethral passage or build up the thickness of the wall of the urethra, which will prevent the urethra from allowing bladder leakage.

Men with incontinence may also need to undergo stress incontinence surgery and receive a sling to keep the bladder in place. However, the male bladder more often becomes restricted by an enlarged prostate. Prostate surgery for incontinence could relieve this issue; however, some patients experience stress incontinence after prostate surgery that may need further treatment.

Bladder surgery for incontinence is performed if other urinary incontinence treatment methods have failed. Bladder therapy treatments include behavioral techniques (like bladder training and fluid and diet management), or a spinal cord stimulator implant for (electrical stimulation therapy, also known as spinal cord stimulation, and neurostimulation therapy) and inserted devices (such as a bladder catheter). Our doctors are experienced in all types of urinary incontinence surgery and treatments, including the use of sacral nerve stimulation implants and implant therapy to control the bladder with Medtronic’s Interstim system. This uses small electrical impulses to redirect the brain signals that are being sent by an overactive bladder to better control urination.

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