Acupuncture treatment is a simple, effective way to treat stress incontinence. I have had great success treating stress incontinence with acupuncture with lasting results and no side effects!

Stress incontinence is most often found in older people, and it is more common in women than in men. When the bladder tone gets weaker with age, sometimes mild jolts to the body by sneezing, coughing or slightly strenuous movements – like lifting – can cause some urine to leak out of the bladder.

A common remedy used with people who experience this problem is using “Kiegel” exercises or mild squeezing of the muscles in the anus and/or perineum area. This can strengthen the bladder tone. The big drawback with only using this method is that people have to remember to do the exercises and do them consistently.

The most effective acupuncture treatment I have used is an easy 2-needle combination of GV 20 and BL 4. These 2 points needled simultaneously helps ‘lift the Qi’ in the bladder by using these 2 points on the Governing Vessel Channel, thereby tonifying the bladder itself. “Lifting chi” is a common treatment practice for mood elevation and issues of prolapsed organs.

In sharing an anecdotal report of one client whom I have treated for Stress Incontinence for the past year is a good example of using these two points exclusively. She is an 91-year-old woman who used to wear pads wherever she went in case she had an “accident”. She never went out without a pad. Sometimes she would use up to 5 pads a day. She did “Kiegel” exercises whenever she remembered, but she did not find that they helped all that much.

Since getting weekly acupuncture treatment with the aforementioned 2 points, she has not had the need for any pads at all. She feels confident that she will not have “accidents” anymore. Her bladder function has returned to 95-100% normal. She does not have to use the “Kiegel” exercises anymore.