Approximately one in four people will experience bladder or bowel symptoms. It can affect men and women of all ages. Despite being a common problem it’s still something that we may feel embarrassed about.
Seeking help can really improve your quality of life with the right assessment treatments and management programme. With the right treatments and products everyone can be helped to effectively manage, improve and in many cases even cure their condition.
Continence symptoms and problems can include:
- stress incontinence: passing urine when you laugh, sneeze or cough
- urge incontinence: not being able to ignore a sudden urge to pass urine
- Nocturia: waking up more than a couple of times in the night to pass urine
- functional incontinence: having a condition or disability which stops you being able to remove your clothes quickly or get to the toilet in time
- bowel incontinence: difficulty controlling bowel movements
If you’ve been experiencing any of the above speak to your GP or healthcare professionals as soon as possible.
Page last reviewed: 23/10/2026