A shocking way to stop embarrassing frequent leaks

LONDON - Stimulating the leg with an electric current can ease the urge to empty the bladder all too frequently, a study shows.

The research has found that the technique helped 70 percent of women with an overactive bladder and more than halved the frequency of their symptoms.

The condition is caused by the bladder muscle contracting before the organ is full, the Daily Mail reports.

Symptoms include the need to urinate often and without much warning.

One solution is to have a permanently implanted device. But the latest technique doesn’t involve an implant.

Instead, doctors insert a small needle into the calf to stimulate the tibial nerve - which runs up through the calf to the sacral plexus.

The needle is connected to a device that sends electrical pulses into the nerve and the therapy is painless.

Raj Persad, consultant urologist at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and Southmead Hospital, said: “Urge incontinence is a troublesome symptom, which can ruin a patient’s quality of life.”

In the trial, led by doctors from North Middlesex University Hospital in London, 43 women with an average age of 55 had a 30-minute treatment each week.

None of them had benefited from other treatments previously. At the end of the six weeks, 70 percent of them showed an improvement in symptoms.

Frequency of urination declined from an average of 15 to seven times in 24 hours, while the average number of incontinence pads required also fell by 34 percent.