Thanks to an overactive bladder and urges to urinate that strike out of nowhere — and strike often — you feel like a prisoner. You don’t like going anywhere where a bathroom isn’t readily available, to say nothing of the fear you have of leaking urine.
It may help you to know that you’re most certainly not alone in your fight against this type of incontinence, as up to 40% of women have symptoms of overactive bladder (OAB).
Even more helpful is the fact that we have a way of quieting an overactive bladder with Botox®. At Women’s Clinic of the Rio Grande Valley, Dr. Fernando Otero and the team pride ourselves on offering effective solutions for urinary incontinence, which can be a major quality-of-life issue.
So, if you’re dealing with an overactive bladder, read on to figure out whether Botox can help you regain control over your bladder, and your life.
Under normal circumstances, when your bladder fills, your brain signals the muscles in your bladder to contract, which forces the urine through your urethra. But you can control this contraction and urge until you find a bathroom. Then, once you empty your bladder, the muscles in your bladder relax again until the organ fills back up.
When you have OAB, the signaling between your brain and bladder is off, and you can experience:
Where the incontinence piece of the puzzle comes in is when you can’t control the urge to urinate and urine leaks out, which is why this type of incontinence is called urge incontinence.
There are many reasons why women can develop an overactive bladder, including:
Technically, a urinary tract infection is a case of overactive bladder. As well, caffeine can lead to an overactive bladder as the stimulant tends to cause bladder contractions. But these are more temporary issues and not typically ongoing problems.
The active ingredient in Botox is onabotulinumtoxinA, which is a neurotoxin that temporarily quiets muscles. As a result, Botox can do wonders for relaxing the dynamic wrinkles that form in the top half of your face due to muscle contractions.
As it turns out, this same effect is exactly what we want for your bladder. To control your OAB, we can inject Botox into the walls of your bladder to quiet the contractions and relieve those sudden “gotta go” urges that plague you day and night.
Botox injections typically last for 12-24 weeks, at which point you can return to us for another round if they’ve helped you find relief. If Botox doesn’t work to remedy your OAB, rest assured, we have other solutions, such as medications, nerve stimulators, and behavioral training.
If you’d like to figure out whether Botox can play a role in controlling your overactive bladder, please feel free to contact one of our offices in McAllen or Edinburg, Texas, to schedule an appointment.
