Surgery for overactive bladder

Overactive bladder syndrome

The bladder is made of muscles and it is the place in the body where urine is stored. It expands to fill with urine and then decreases in size when the urine exits the body.

When the bladder fills up to a certain point, the person becomes aware of this, which tells them that it is time to go to the bathroom and get rid of the urine that has been stored up. The brain then tells the muscles of the bladder to contract and relax in order to expel the urine from the body.

When the bladder contracts suddenly without any control, even when it is not full, is a condition that is called overactive bladder syndrome.

Usually no cause can be found for why the bladder muscles are behaving in this way, which means that it is not one of the obvious and more common reasons, like a urinary tract infection or an enlarged prostate gland.

Symptoms

Urgency to want to go to the bathroom, which occurs very suddenly and without notice, is the main symptom of the condition. In this instance, there is no way to delay going to the bathroom, and can lead to embarrassing situations if you are not near a bathroom at the time of the urge.

Frequency is another symptom. This means tha,t a person is going to the toilet very often, more than seven times a day usually, but it most cases, it is a lot more than seven times a day, because this number is fairly normal for someone who is drinking a lot of water throughout the day.

Nocturia is another symptom. This is when a person must wake up in the middle of the night several times in order to go to the toilet. Surgery

If other treatments for the condition do not work, the last option will have to be surgery for some people.

In the procedure, the bladder muscles need to be helped out, and this is done by inserting an implant into the bladder that will help it contract more easily and normally. This is called sacral nerve stimulation.

Augmentation cystoplasty is an operation in which a small piece of tissue from the intestine is added to the wall of the bladder in order to increase the size of it. However, this does not let people pass urine normally and, unfortunately, they will have to wear a catheter.

Urinary diversion is an operation in which the ureters are routed directly to the outside of the body, which means that it does not flow into the bladder at all. This is the last option when all of the other operations have failed to yield results.