About 10 percent of people in Germany suffer from bladder weakness. You lose urine unintentionally and involuntarily. Special hygienic pads should offer safety in everyday life. Do they do that too?
Our Austrian partner organization, the Association for Consumer Information (VKI), has twelve products for mild to moderate bladder weakness tested, which those affected can buy in drugstores, for example. As a guideline, up to 100 milliliters of urine are lost in four hours with mild bladder weakness, and up to 200 milliliters with moderate bladder weakness.
Testing of suction power and handling
For the test, the pads had to prove their absorption capacity in the laboratory: What is the maximum amount of liquid they can absorb? With a liquid intake of 50 milliliters, do they protect against leakage and rewetting? And: How is the handling, wearing and security feeling? This was evaluated by ten subjects in a practical test.
Four of the best are also available from us
Result: Of the 12 products tested, nine were convincing. Four of them are also available in Germany. Particularly cheap: Duchesse from Müller for 15 cents each and Siempre from Lidl for 16 cents. Slightly more expensive: Tena discreet and Always discreet boutique for 35 cents each.
Today’s insoles are thinner and more powerful than before – thanks to an integrated coarse-grained powder. It turns urine into gel. This allows them to absorb many times their own weight in liquid.
If urine comes out when you sneeze
Bladder weakness is a taboo subject, and the level of suffering is enormous. Those affected usually have stress or urge incontinence or a mixture of both. With stress incontinence, urine leaks involuntarily as soon as the abdominal cavity comes under pressure, for example when lifting, coughing, sneezing or laughing.
In the case of urge incontinence, the bladder is overactive: when the bladder is not full, there is suddenly a strong urge to go to the toilet – and urine is often lost immediately.
Causes such as age, pregnancy, prostate
The risk of urinary incontinence increases with age. Women are affected more often than men. This has to do with the pelvic floor, which provides support for abdominal organs and which can greatly weaken pregnancy and childbirth.
In men, bladder weakness can be the result of, among other things, an enlarged prostate – or from prostate cancer surgery. Whether and which early detection tests for prostate cancer are an option is answered in our special prostate cancer early detection: Don’t rush things.
Therapy is often not used
Regardless of the cause: many people with bladder weakness never talk to a doctor about it – out of shame or because they think there is nothing they can do anyway. There are therapies with high success rates such as bladder and pelvic floor training.
Medications are also available to treat urinary incontinence. Which affected persons are prescribed depends on the exact form of the bladder weakness. If general measures and drugs are not enough, surgery may be an option. In our article Bladder weakness: What helps with incontinence, we present an overview of the options and give our reviews of common medications.
Tipp: The contact person can be the family doctor or a urologist, and for women also the gynaecologist. In some places, continence centers offer multidisciplinary help. Contact points can be searched for on the website of the German Continence Society.
In the case of severe incontinence, the cash register pays
Incontinence products such as diaper briefs can make life easier for afflicted people – in addition to or as an alternative to therapies. If the incontinence is at least moderate and if prescribed by a doctor, health insurance companies will pay for it. In our test of templates, diaper briefs and pants, about half of the 19 products did well – including mostly higher-priced ones.
In order to get the aids, patients usually have to contact a contractual partner of their insurance company, such as a pharmacy or a medical supply store. However, good advice is difficult to find there, as a study by Stiftung Warentest in 2017 showed. In the article Advice on incontinence, we give tips on what patients should pay attention to.