Treatments

Overactive Bladder Treatments

Your care plan will depend on what's causing your OAB and how severe it is.

• Bladder retraining. You train your bladder muscles to hold urine for longer times.
• Dietary changes. This may include avoiding caffeine, alcohol, spicy foods, citrus and chocolate. Another thing that can help is eating a high-fiber diet and limiting how much fluid you drink.
• Pelvic floor therapy. This can strengthen the pelvic muscles used when you urinate.
• Biofeedback. To help you learn to control your bladder muscles, electrical sensors are put on your belly. They give information about your body and help you find the right muscles to squeeze or relax. It is often used with pelvic floor therapy.
• Medication. They can help relax your bladder or block nerve signals that cause bladder contractions.
• Nerve stimulation. Since your nerves send signals to tell your brain that your bladder is full, treating your nerves can help bladder control. There are 2 types:
• Sacral nerve stimulation: A device implanted under the skin near the back of your hip sends electrical impulses to the sacral nerves, which help calm the bladder muscle.
• Percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation: A small needle electrode is inserted near the ankle to send electrical impulses to the tibial nerve. These signals travel to the sacral nerves, the same spot where the nerves start, and help the bladder muscle calm down.
• Botulinum toxin. These can be injected into the muscle of the bladder to relax the muscles. This can reduce urgency and how often you feel urgency.
• Surgery. Not often used to treat OAB, surgery may be needed if your loss of bladder control cannot be managed any other way and is truly a debilitating condition. Surgery is done to either increase your bladder volume, reroute the flow of your urine or remove the bladder entirely.