Complications

Complications of stress incontinence may include:

• Emotional distress. If you experience stress incontinence with your daily activities, you may feel embarrassed and distressed by the condition. It can disrupt your work, social activities, relationships and even your sex life. Some people are embarrassed that they need pads or incontinence garments.
• Mixed urinary incontinence. Mixed incontinence is common and means that you have both stress incontinence and urgency incontinence — the unintentional loss of urine resulting from bladder muscle contractions (overactive bladder) that cause an urgent need to urinate.
• Skin rash or irritation. Skin that is constantly in contact with urine may get irritated or sore and can break down. This happens with severe incontinence if you don't take precautions, such as using moisture barriers or incontinence pads.