Stress incontinence is leakage of urine which occurs at the same time as increases in abdominal pressure such as coughing, sneezing, laughing, running, and jumping or any other form of exertion. It is characterized by relatively small leakage of urine that happens in “squirts” with these activities. It usually starts as just drops or minimal leakage and often gets worse over time. Stress incontinence is the most treatable of the various types of incontinence. There have been more surgical advances in this type than any other. New minimally invasive surgery has taken what was only one decade ago, a relatively major operation for stress incontinence and introduced new techniques which can be done in as little as 14 minutes with very high success rates. Dr. Vardy has trained over 250 surgeons in some of these new techniques.
Techniques which Dr. Vardy is considered an expert in for stress incontinence include:
TVT
TVT-O
IVS Tunneller
SPARC
Monarc
Align
Halo
These procedures as a whole fall into a category of operation call “slingplasties” and typically take from 12-16 minutes. They should always include a cystoscopy (looking in the bladder with a camera attached to a long scope) to make sure the tape is in the right place.