Is there a link between stress and incontinence?

[John Davis]

What about stress and incontinence?  Although we all react differently to stress, there does appear to be a link.

Whan I have a period of severe stress, my incontinence definitely is worse.☹️  Stress affects not only my urinary incontinence but also my fecal incontince.😱  During a bad period of stress, all I need is to have more bladder or bowel accidents, but they often do happen.  I have had this happen enough in my life that I have established a firm link between the two - at least for me.

Then, the reverse occurs.  Bladder accidents, and particularly bowel accidents, spin me up emotionally and my stress levels soar even  higher.  That, of course, tends to stimulate more accidents.

So, I think there is a linkage between stress and incontinence where each influences the other.  Mind you, I am not aware of medical studies on this, although they probably exist.

As I said, we all react differently and it may not be the same for you.  How do you handle stress and incontinence?  Does it affect only your bladder incontinence or also bowel incontinence?

--John

[Scarth]

I absolutely believe they can be linked. the more stress the worse it can be. not in every case im sure but for the most part yes it is 

[Iken]

I do believe that their is a link between stress and Incontinence 

[Dan]

I would say yes, for me at least. I will wet more, but what is more significant is that i often have bowel accidents in the day when stressed, though most of the time, i have them at night.

[John Davis]

I just conducted some brief Google searches on the topic and located a few published medical studies that found a link between anxiety or depression and incontinence.  Anxiety or depression are listed as "risk factors" with a fairly high degree of causality.  It is good to know that it is more than just speculation on my part.

In my case, very strong anxiety contributes to, or causes, bowel accidents.  Medical studies said that this is related to the body's "flight or fight" reaction to threats.  Under threats our bodies make more adrenaline and other physiological changes occur that contribute to both urinary and fecal incontinence.

--John

[Zombie_Turtle]

stress contributes to my condition being worse or better so by proxy contributes to my incontinence. I wouldn't say stress, adrenaline levels in the bloodstream, cortisol levels that are too high, or too low, would not be a root cause but could be a factor.  Adrenaline has the opposite effect on my body where i nearly stop producing urine as a result.  I would say that there would need to be another underlying condition such as weakness in pelvic floor, or some type of nerve malfunction.  

[Slomo]

Not just believable. Scientifically proven. Too much stress is well known to cause all kinds of problems, physical and mental.