Good review of the significant problem experienced by men and women with overactive bladder. Urgency to urinate and loss of control when needing to go are the main symptoms, but can also make people go more frequently during the day and have to get up at night as well.
Conventional treatment involves oral medications that can create side-effects such as dry mouth and constipation. Bladder botox injections are usually quick, safe and well tolerated with local anaesthetic gel in the bladder. The benefits begin in about one week and on average last 8 to 12 months. Many patients then come back for repeat injections or “Top-ups”.
Nerve stimulators to the low back can be tried as a temporary measure and if they prove helpful, can be permanently implanted, like a cardiac pacemaker. The device requires calibration intermittently, and the main unit will need replacing every five to seven years. This procedure is performed in only selected hospitals in Canada (Alberta, Ontario and Quebec).
Because of the travel costs and revisits required for Neurostimulation treatment, more patients are choosing bladder Botox injections, even though the effects may not be permanent.
Dr. Wilkie- you have no idea how you have changed my life! I cannot thank you and your staff enough for making me feel so at ease, answering all my questions (no matter how embarrassing they were!) and for the time and care you gave to me. I am so grateful for my new found freedom. I was so scared to look into my incontinent problem- and your staff was so wonderful. Please pass on my thanks to them for me.