Overactive Bladder (OAB)
What is Overactive Bladder?
Overactive bladder, also called OAB, causes sudden urges to urinate that may be hard to control. There might be a need to pass urine many times during the day and night. There also might be loss of urine that isn't intended, called urgency incontinence.
Common Symptoms
If you have an overactive bladder, you may:
Feel a sudden urge to urinate that's hard to control.
Lose urine without meaning to after feeling an urgent need to urinate, called urgency incontinence.
Urinate often. This can mean eight or more times in 24 hours.
Wake up more than twice a night to urinate, called nocturia.
Even if you can get to the toilet in time when you feel an urge to urinate, having to urinate often during day and night can disrupt your life.
Diagnosis
After you talk about your symptoms, your healthcare provider may do an exam right away. Or, they may refer you to a specialist, such as a Urologist, who can diagnose and treat OAB. Some Urologists specialize in incontinence and OAB.
Medical History
Your exam will begin with questions. Your provider will want to understand your health history and experiences. You should tell them about your symptoms, how long you’ve had them, and how they’re changing your life. A medical history will include questions about your past and current health problems. You should bring a list of over-the-counter and prescription drugs you take. You should also tell your provider about your diet and how much and what kinds of liquids you drink daily, including at night.
Physical Exam
Your provider will examine you to find what may be causing your symptoms. Doctors often feel your abdomen, the organs in your pelvis, and your rectum.
Bladder Diary
You may be asked to keep a Bladder Diary for a few weeks. With this, you will note how often you go to the bathroom and any time you leak urine. This will help your healthcare provider learn more about your day-to-day symptoms. The bladder diary helps you track the following:
When and how much fluid you drink
When and how much you urinate
How often do you have that “got to go” urgency feeling
When and how much urine you may leak
Having a Bladder Diary during your first visit can be helpful because it describes your daily habits and urinary symptoms and shows your provider how they affect your life. Your doctor will use this information to help treat you.
Other Tests
Urine tests: Your health care provider may ask you to leave a urine sample to test for infection or blood.
Bladder scan: This type of ultrasound shows how much urine remains in the bladder after you go to the bathroom.
More tests, like a cystoscopy or urodynamic testing, are usually not indicated as a first-line investigation, but may be used if your provider thinks something else is happening.
Treatment
When it comes to treatment, multiple approaches will be reviewed to help find the best solution to improve your quality of life.
Lifestyle changes: Including modification of diet and habits, will be reviewed in order to maximize the improvement to your incontinence severity.
Pelvic floor exercises: Will be encouraged if there are risk factors to anticipate a weakness in the muscles that support the pelvic floor.
Medications: May be discussed as another means of gaining control over certain types of incontinence.
Surgery: Options are available to correct or minimize certain types of incontinence, including techniques to reduce the activity of the bladder or to support the bladder/urethra
Emsella (offered at Muskoka Urology):
Emsella is a breakthrough, non-invasive, painless treatment that restores pelvic floor function. The Emsella chair creates supramaximal contractions in the pelvic floor muscles, building a stronger and tighter pelvic floor. This strengthening of the pelvic muscles provides sturdier support for pelvic organs like the bladder, improving control and confidence. And there’s a bonus! A stronger pelvic floor frequently enhances sexual function, too.
Emsella treatments have delivered extraordinary results. Clinical studies show up to 95% of patients report improvement in quality of life and up to 75% report pad reduction.