Nothing knocks your confidence down a peg like feeling that terrible dribble between your legs when you sneeze, laugh, or do a jumping-jack at the gym. Urinary incontinence is a secret shame that many women carry with them like an ever-threatening storm cloud. It can negatively affect a woman’s sense of self and even prevent her from doing the things she loves, like seeing a funny movie with friends or taking a body pump class at the gym. If you’ve done a thousand rounds of Kegel exercises to no avail, don’t start buying adult diapers just yet. An effective new device called the MonaLisa Touch may help you tighten things up down there.

Why Have You Sprung a Leak?

Ladies, our underwear wasn’t always so…soggy. When you were young, you could do jumping-jacks all day long and stay dry as sand in the desert. That’s because your internal pelvic muscles were tight as can be, your bladder was held nice and secure, and your urinary sphincter muscles (which surround the urethra) could relax and tighten on command without anything getting the way.

Unfortunately for many women, pregnancy, childbirth, and hormonal fluctuations have a way of changing the way your bladder and lady parts work. This is  not too surprising considering that during childbirth you have to push the equivalent of a watermelon out of your body! Even women without children may suffer from the “unfortunate dribble,” as I like to call it, because menopause and age play havoc with the bladder and urethra too. (Your urethra is the tube that funnels urine from your bladder to hopefully the toilet rather than your brand new panties.)

Urinary Incontinence during Pregnancy and Childbirth

Pregnancy and childbirth produce beautiful children, but they aren’t always easy on your body. A seven-pound baby is not a small object, and vaginal birth forces your vagina and all its accompanying muscles and supportive tissue to stretch. Not every woman’s body fully recovers from this experience. For some women, the birthing process stretches and weakens the pelvic floor. This condition is known as a prolapsed pelvic floor. Without strong supporting muscles to keep it in place, the bladder, uterus, rectum, and even the small intestine may sag down in the form of a hernia into the vagina, putting pressure on the urethra and preventing the urinary sphincter from keeping the tap turned off. That’s why any small movement, from a laugh to a sneeze can nudge the tap open and send a little tinkle down your leg.

Urinary Incontinence and Menopause

Your muscles inevitably get a little saggy with age. That includes the muscles inside your body, like your pelvic floor. Over time, in some women, age can lead to a weakening of the pelvic muscles. Just as with childbirth, weakened pelvic muscles allow the bladder to sag down and put pressure on the urethra. As if simple aging weren’t enough for your bladder and pelvic muscles to deal with, menopause comes in and makes things worse.

During perimenopause and menopause, certain important hormones in your body begin drying up, including estrogen. This hormone plays a big role in keeping your vagina supple and lubricated. As the estrogen well begins to run dry, your vaginal tissue becomes less elastic, the lining of your urethra thins, and the pelvic muscles weaken at a faster rate. All of this means that it becomes harder and harder for your weakened muscles to keep your tinkle inside of you until you can make it to the toilet.

Solutions for Urinary Incontinence

You’ve probably heard from your doctor or your girlfriends about the benefits of Kegel exercises. These are simple exercises you can perform for roughly five minutes a day to strengthen your pelvic muscles. You can find a lot of great resources online that explain how to perform Kegels.

Kegels are an excellent first step in stopping those unfortunate dribbles, but they might not be enough for every woman. If you are still having difficulty, your doctor may recommend certain medicines, biofeedback, and neuromodulation to help you with your condition. Surgical procedures are also available. For instance, your doctor may insert a stiff ring (called a pessary) that presses against the wall of the vagina to take pressure off of the urethra. Another option is to inject a “bulking agent,” such as collagen near the urinary sphincter to help close the bladder opening. It’s like temporarily plumping your bladder instead of your lips or cheeks!

In more severe cases, a doctor may even recommend a surgical procedure called “retropubic suspension,” where the doctor uses sutures or a mesh sling to lift the bladder and urethra.

A New, Non-Surgical Solution for Urinary Incontinence

(or How to Finally Stop Peeing When You Laugh)

Recently, the FDA approved the world’s first intravaginal laser treatment for women. The device is called the MonaLisa Touch, and it uses laser light energy to stimulate collagen production in the vagina, restore vaginal mucosa, and rehydrate the vaginal walls. It does an excellent job of replicating the effect of estrogen lost during menopause to help the tissue of the vagina restore itself, all without the need for hormonal therapy or invasive surgery.

After just one session with the MonaLisa Touch, many women notice a marked improvement in urinary incontinence. My patients have told me that they aren’t afraid to laugh anymore, that they’ve started running again, and that sex is better than ever. The MonaLisa Touch not only prevents urinary leaks during sex, it can also eliminate the symptoms of painful intercourse, a common symptom of menopause.

MonaLisa Touch for Urinary Incontinence

I believe so strongly in the power of the MonaLisa Touch, that I invested in one for my OB-GYN office in the Templeton, Paso Robles, and Atascadero areas of California. The MonaLisa Touch is a pain-free treatment that usually takes less than 10 minutes. Patients can walk right out of my office after a treatment and get back to home or work. Three or four treatments are usually enough to create a lasting change.

To learn more about how the MonaLisa Touch works and what you can expect during a session, take a few minutes to watch this educational video. Pay attention to the impressive stats at the end!

If urinary incontinence is stealing your confidence and quality of life, then don’t just accept it or stuff your panties with super maxi pads. If you live in Templeton, Paso Robles, Santa Margarita or Atascadero, California, contact my office at 805-434-9441 to learn more about how the MonaLisa Touch can tighten the tap so you never have to worry about unfortunate dribbles again!