If you’re a woman, there’s a 1 in 3 chance that you’ll suffer from this disorder.

It can seriously hurt your quality of life, it’s embarrassing, and it almost certainly isolates you. It can even be debilitating.

It affects both younger and older women. But nobody likes to talk about it.

The good news: there is help.

The problem is pelvic floor disorder which may include dropped pelvic organs, the frequent urge to urinate, and both urinary and anal incontinence.

Kaiser Permanente recently studied 4,000 women from ages 25 to 84 with this disorder.

About 80% of the women had given birth, 25% had anal incontinence, 15% suffered stress urinary incontinence, 13% had overactive bladder, and 6% endured the dropping of their pelvic organs, which is called pelvic organ prolapse.

Women who give birth vaginally are twice as likely to suffer pelvic floor disorder as those who have Cesarean births or have never given birth.

Other risk factors are obesity, hysterectomy, chronic constipation, menopause, chronic cough, repetitive heavy lifting, and genetic connective tissue weakness.

Your Treatment Options

If you suffer from an overactive bladder, involuntary leaking of urine during physical activity, dropped pelvic organs, or anal incontinence, what can you do?

First, there’s physical therapy to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles.

You may have heard of Kegel exercises.

It’s the same principle as exercising to tone your arms except you tone your pelvic floor muscles to help support your bladder, uterus, and bowel.

Doing these exercises on a regular basis may reduce your risk of urinary and anal incontinence. They may even prevent pelvic organ prolapse.

You should ask your doctor how to do these exercises properly.

A physical therapist can also show you other techniques to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles.

A second treatment option is a device that’s fitted to support your vaginal walls.

This can include a vaginal pessary which is like a diaphragm. It’s inserted into the vagina to support vaginal prolapse and reduce stress urinary incontinence.

You’ll need to see your doctor for a proper fitting and for regular checkups and cleaning of the device.

There are other intravaginal devices as well.

The third treatment option is surgery.

Surgical options range from minimally invasive repairs to a hysterectomy, which is the removal of the uterus.

You should discuss your options with your doctor to decide which treatment is best for you.

You can also get more information from the National Association for Continence (NAFC) at nafc.org