For all the ladies who constantly have the urge to visit the rest room time and again due to a weak bladder, there's good news. A recent study shows that a injection of Botox can help keep a check on leaky bladders in women and works just as well as prescribed medication.
In fact, results from the study stated that compared to a daily anticholinergic pill, an injection of onabotulinumtoxin A was more than twice as likely to completely fix urgent, leaky bladders.
"Women don't need to suffer in silence," the study's lead author Dr. Linda Brubaker, dean and professor at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, said. "There are effective treatments available and more options now than ever."
According to the report 19 percent of American women experience sudden bladder contractions which result in urine leakage. This is not common in men. Men can face similar situations but not at an older age.
"The study followed 241 women with urinary urgency incontinence for six months, with half the women receiving daily oral medication along with a placebo saline injection. The rest of the women were given a Botox injection into the detrusor muscle, a layer of the bladder wall, and a daily placebo pill," Brubaker said.
"Normally you should be able to ignore the sensation a few times and then swing by the bathroom. Their first warning is strong and urgent and even if they respond quickly, it's not fast enough. If you're on a bus that's stuck in traffic with no restroom, you're in trouble."
Brubaker went on.
"At the end of six months, 71 percent of the women who took oral medication and 70 percent of those who got a Botox injection had marked improvement. Symptoms completely resolved in 27 percent of those who received the Botox, compared with only 13 percent of those taking the drugs. Almost half of the women who got oral medication experienced dry mouth, while 5 percent of those who received Botox had trouble urinating and needed to have a catheter inserted to drain their bladders. There was also a higher rate of urinary tract infections in those treated with Botox (33 percent versus 13 percent)."
Dr. Alan J. Wein, a professor and chief of urology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania says it's important not to overfill the bladder by drinking too much water.
"Surprisingly most people don't understand that the more you drink the more symptomatic you will be," he said. "So when you feel like you really have to go, the routine is to stand still, relax and then contract the muscles -- and then relax them as quickly as you can. Often that makes the urgency pass long enough for you to safely get to the bathroom."
This kind of therapy can help empower a patient.
"It's something you can do yourself that requires no medications at all," Wein said.
