bladder frequency and urgency

[April]

Hi Everyone,

I’m wondering if others have experience with bladder frequency and urgency problems. When I do not use ice, I go to the bathroom very often and often only go a tablespoon or two (suggesting I really do not need to go!). I’m trying very hard to go for short periods without ice. Currently, I keep a frozen condom wrapped in a paper towel on a pad below my pelvic floor *all* the time. I get several hours a night without ice (I wake up every 2-3 hours and have to re-ice, but the condoms melt in about an hour, so while I’m sleeping I get several hours without ice), but that is it. As you can imagine, this is damaging my pelvic floor tissue. So, I’m trying to go without it for an hour or two early in the day when my burning isn’t yet off-the-charts, but when I try this, I am constantly going to the bathroom (and, of course, urinating is painful too). So, this problem is making this effort to reduce my icing even harder. I think I’ve heard others mention these bladder issues, so I thought I’d pose a few questions in case others have suggestions.

(1) Does this sound like a byproduct of the pn (e.g., my physical therapist said the nerves cross-talk, which could explain it.)?

(2) If you’ve had this problem, how did you deal with it? Was there a medication you found helpful? I am on 600 mg of gabapentin, and I take tramadol when the ice won’t eliminate the pain (once a week or so). I think I remember reading on here that the tricyclic anti-depressants help with this. Does anyone have experience with those meds helping with this problem? (I have been on both amitriptyline or nortriptyline, but I can't draw on that experience to determine if they would help because I was not having significant bladder issues when I went on them.)

Many thanks,
April

[Violet M]

Yes, I had similar problems, April. Tricyclic antidepressants helped (imipramine) but I had too many side effects with it so I switched to an SSRI (lexapro) which also helped. It didn't take away the problem completely but it helped. Since you can tolerate tricyclics that might be the place to start.

Violet

[April]

Thanks, Violet. I thought I remembered you saying you'd had this problem and that tricyclic antidepressants helped. Thanks for confirming that. I will talk to my pain doctor about adding one of those two to my med list. After trying to go without ice again today, I'm starting to doubt that I'll be able to deal with the burning (even if I can reduce the bladder problems), but I have to give it shot. But, I think that my frequent wake-ups (and re-icing) at night may be more about bladder urgency than burning, so at the very least the medication may help me sleep for longer periods at night, giving my pelvic floor a longer break from the ice.

Thanks again,
April

[sadie]

The above post is old but I had this bit of research by Dr Possover and came to the forum to post it, before filing it away.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3497942/

In reading the 2017 aforementioned post I want to add that freezing small water bottles will last quite long and can fit in a footie from the Dollar Store. Sleeping with them between the legs may help with burning, along with lexapor and lyrica and compounded 10% lidocain.


God bless this forum and all that use it.
Sadie

[Violet M]

Thank Sadie. Great article!

Violet