Are your bowel incontinence symptoms disruptive to your daily activities?
Have the freedom to live your life!
You are not alone.
~19 million
adults in the United States suffer from bowel incontinence, also referred to as accidental bowel leakage.1
What Is Bowel Incontinence?
Bowel incontinence, or accidental bowel leakage, is a condition where people get sudden urges to pass stool and experience leakage of stool before they make it to the restroom.
Bowel Incontinence Symptoms
You may be suffering from bowel incontinence if:
Fecal Urgency
You experience sudden urges to pass stool
Urgency Fecal Incontinence
You experience an inability to stop the urge to pass stool
Passive Bowel Incontinence
You experience leakage of stool with activity or without awareness
Did you know that patients can suffer from dual incontinence?
Dual incontinence is when a patient is experiencing both bladder and bowel control symptoms.
Your journey to find the treatment solution that works for you
1 CONSULT WITH YOUR DOCTOR
Discuss your symptoms
Start a baseline bowel diary
Undergo recommended diagnostic tests
Discuss treatment options
2 INITIAL TREATMENT
Diet changes
Sphincter and pelvic floor exercises
Over-the-counter antidiarrheal medications
Pessary
No symptom improvements? Don’t give up!
Follow up with your doctor to discuss advanced therapy options
3 ADVANCED THERAPIES
Minimally Invasive
Sacral Neuromodulation
Invasive
Surgical Sphincter Repair
Bowel Incontinence
Patient Care Pathway
Your doctor and his or her clinical team will follow a patient care pathway, which is a roadmap of the different treatment options available to you. The pathway starts with conservative treatments and then moves on to the advanced therapies.
1
CONSULT WITH YOUR DOCTOR
INITIAL
TREATMENT
2
FOLLOW UP WITH
YOUR DOCTOR
ADVANCED THERAPIES
3
What Is Sacral Neuromodulation?
Sacral Neuromodulation is a therapy that provides gentle stimulation to the nerves that communicate between the brain and the bladder and bowel. This advanced therapy helps restore normal communication, which can result in symptom improvement.
If we think overactive bladder is a hard thing for patients to bring up with a physician, fecal incontinence is even worse. Nobody really wants to bring up the fact that they’re accidentally passing stool. That’s a hard one for people to even bring up with anybody. We’ve had limited strategies to treat the problem, so we’ll often start with pelvic floor exercises, behavioral modifications, and optimizing fiber. Beyond that, our treatment options have historically been limited. It’s been a challenging condition from a standpoint of getting patients to talk about it. Sacral Neuromodulation is a great proven, long-term treatment option for these patients.
I think it’s really helpful if patients are familiar with the variety of treatment options up front. I think oftentimes, patients will stop seeking care for this problem because it doesn’t seem like there are any other options left. It’s really helpful to give a patient an idea of where we might be going early on, so that they recognize, “Hey, there’s a reason to come back. There’s a reason to continue this. Just because I didn’t get better with step one, doesn’t mean that there’s not another option for me.”
There is a solution for you.
The good news is that there are bowel incontinence treatment options for controlling your symptoms. Axonics Therapy is an advanced solution to treat your bowel incontinence symptoms. This therapy is a clinically proven solution to help people regain bowel control.2
"I adjusted my whole life by limiting myself from drinking and eating. Now I don’t have to."
Doris had suffered with overactive bladder and bowel symptoms since 1987. “The thing that stands out in my mind the most is that this has gone on for so many years and I had to adjust my whole life.” Finally, with Sacral Neuromodulation therapy from Axonics, Doris got her symptoms under control and was able to say “goodbye” to wearing pads!
1. Ditah I, Devaki P, Luma HN, et al. Prevalence, trends, and risk factors for fecal incontinence in United States adults, 2005-2010. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2014;12(4):636-43.e432. doi:10.1016/j.cgh.2013.07.020
2. Pezzella A, McCrery R, Lane F, et al. Two-year outcomes of the ARTISAN-SNM study for the treatment of urinary urgency incontinence using the Axonics rechargeable sacral neuromodulation system. Neurourol Urodyn. 2021;40(2):714-721. doi:10.1002/nau.24615