We live in a world in which many drugs are prescribed for multiple medical problems. It stands to reason that some of them may have adverse health effects on other body areas that they were not meant to affect. This is certainly true of drug effects on the urinary tract.
Many medications actually worsen or cause urinary leakage.
There are several different mechanisms by which drugs can affect the urinary continence physiologic systems. It answers some of the questions of how medications we take for other medical problems can actually cause or aggravate urine loss. Continence and voiding are complex physiologic mechanisms and as such, different components of voiding and holding urine can be affected by pharmacologic actions of many drugs. The urethra, which is the tube from the bladder to the outside, needs to be closed constantly to prevent leakage. Medicines such as alpha blockers that relax the urethral muscle, will cause or worsen incontinence.