Urethral Sling surgery

Sling surgery is one of the common surgeries that is done to treat stress incontinence. Its certain in some people on coughing, sneezing or putting pressure on your bladder make people pee a little.

In this process surgeon harvests a human tissue and creates the “sling” out of it. Then place it below the urethra and urine passes through. This sling lifts and supports urethra to prevent leaks.

How it’s done: 

Mostly urinary incontinence is observed in women than men. For this, doctors use two types of sling surgery:

Mid-urethral sling surgery 

Its most common surgery in this surgeon will put the urethra in one of the below three ways:

• Retropubic method: It is also known as tension-free vaginal tape, or TVT method. In this procedure surgeon make a incision inside your vagina under urethra and opening for the needle to pass through. Then surgeon uses the needle to pass through the sling under urethra and behind the pubic bone. Very few stiches to close the vaginal incision. 
• Transobturator method: The similar vaginal incision is done by surgeon as in retropubic method and small openings each side of labia for needle to pass through. The sling passes in different way compared to retropubic method and placed under the urethra and incisions are closed with stiches.
• Single-incision mini method: In this method, surgeon makes only one incision in your vagina and pass the sling through it and places it under urethra and incision is closed by stiches. 

Conventional Sling:

In Conventional sling approach, surgeon makes incision into vagina and places a sling that is made up of synthetic mesh or own tissue by making other incision into abdomen and pulls the sling to achieve right amount of tension and attaches ends of sling to fascia (pelvic tissue) and close abdominal stiches.

This procedure takes longer recovery compared to other procedures.

Risks: 

Like any other surgery, this procedure also comes up with some risks. Some common risks can be:

• Temporary difficulty in urinating 
• Urinary tract infection 
• Urinary retention 
• Painful intercourse