Overactive bladder (OAB) is an umbrella term for several urinary symptoms. The most common symptom is a sudden, uncontrollable urge to urinate. Other symptoms include urinary leakage, frequent urination, and waking up during the night to urinate.
OAB is a common condition, affecting 40% of women and 30% of men in the United States. It can usually be managed with lifestyle changes, prescription drugs, botulinum toxin (Botox) treatment, nerve stimulation, and in severe cases, surgery.
Whether you've already been diagnosed with OAB or suspect you have it, you may want to consider keeping a bladder diary. This can give you clues about what's behind your OAB symptoms and can also help you manage your OAB symptoms.
„The bottom line is these are very easy to do,“ says Dr. Howard Goldman, a urologist at the Cleveland Clinic. „There's no cost and there's no risk. Many guidelines on how to treat overactive bladder suggest that keeping a diary before starting treatment can be very helpful.“
There are several reasons why you might want to start a bladder diary.
To collect data yourself: „If you think something might be going on, keeping a bladder diary can be really helpful, even if it's just to see how often you actually go to the bathroom and when you're leaking urine,“ says Northwestern Medicine Urology. says Dr. Margaret Muller. Chicago.
That said, Mueller points out that women in particular tend to think they urinate too much because „their bladders prevent them from doing 100 million things a day.“ In reality, she says, they are often within the normal range. Her bladder diary can show this and provide reassurance.
To contact your healthcare provider: If you decide to talk to your health care provider about your symptoms, it may be helpful to keep a bladder diary. For example, keeping track of how much urine you urinate can help your health care provider better understand how much your bladder can hold and how much you actually need to go to the bathroom. „Some patients think they come in all the time, but when they look in their diaries, they've only been there five times,“ Goldman said. „There's a big difference between someone who only has 6 ounces in their bladder and someone who only has 15 ounces in their bladder.“
To identify behaviors that can be changed: You may have troublesome symptoms such as having to go to the bathroom frequently or having to run to get there in time. Goldman says his bladder diary may reveal some behaviors you can change before seeing your doctor.
For example, you may have been drinking a lot right before bed, or you may have consumed more Diet Coke in a day than you intended. „Part of the problem with OAB may be drinking too much water or drinking too much caffeine, and that may be the underlying factor,“ Goldman says.
If requested by your healthcare provider: Goldman asks patients to keep a bladder diary at their first appointment. „It's most important to understand what's going on in the first place,“ he says.
Both Muller and Goldman also sometimes have patients keep bladder diaries when starting new treatments or to measure response to treatment. „There are some treatments that we can do clinical trials on. In those cases, we might keep a diary before and during treatment to get a sense of how well it works,“ says Goldman. says Mr.
Muller uses a bladder diary to see how often patients leak urine with a strong urge to go to the bathroom, and how often they leak urine with things like coughing or sneezing. She also wants to see how often the patient urinates. This combination can help determine what treatment is needed.
„Let's say there's no leak, but they're going to the bathroom every 30 minutes,“ Mueller said. „You might be able to do an intervention called timed urination, which is basically retraining the bladder, which has been proven to be effective.“ Instead of 30 minutes he tries to extend it to 1 hour. Gradually, continue adding another 30 minutes until you are urinating every two hours.
If you wake up many times during the night, A bladder diary is important for people who frequently urinate at night. „It lets you see if you're urinating more than you should during the night,“ says Goldman. Normally, he explains, the amount of urine you urinate at night should be less than one-third of your total urine output. If you urinate more than that, it may indicate another medical problem that is causing your body to eliminate more fluid in the evening.
One of the most common causes of excessive urination at night, known as nocturia, is obstructive sleep apnea. „When you have obstructive sleep apnea, your body thinks it's daytime and urinates normally, which reduces the production of antidiuretic hormone,“ Dr. Muller says. People who have risk factors for sleep apnea, such as snoring, being overweight, or obese, are usually referred to a sleep study to see if that may be part of the problem. I’ll get it,” she says. „The benefit of sleep apnea is that it is reversible and with treatment you can really reduce your bladder symptoms.“
Please select your tracking method. You can write your bladder diary in your notebook. Download template Print it out (Goldman recommends it) This one), or find an app for your phone. Some companies even sell cups that measure urine and automatically upload the amount to an app, Goldman said. „But the average person doesn't need to be that fancy,“ he says.
Keep a diary for 3 days. Goldman says one day is not enough because things can change significantly from day to day. “Research shows that a three-day diary is not that different from a longer diary, so a three-day diary is short enough to get a sense of what’s going on, but long enough to get an accurate idea. ,” he explains.
Uses a 24-hour period. Start tracking when you wake up in the morning. It is not necessary to track for 3 days in a row, but he must be tracked for 24 hours at a time. For example, if you wake up at 7 a.m. on your first day, write in your diary until 7 a.m. the next day.
Measure your urine. You will need a cup unless you receive a collection device from your healthcare provider. It's best to use a measuring cup so you can see exactly how much has gone through. The cup or collection device should be rinsed with water after each use. Be sure to measure and record your urine output during the day and at night.
Use a bladder diary to track information and symptoms such as:
- how much water do you drink
- how often do you drink
- frequency of urination
- How much urine do you urinate?
- How often do you feel the urge to urinate?
- When and how much urine was leaked (if applicable)
Goldman emphasizes that if you have symptoms of OAB, it's important to have everything checked by your health care provider. „Now there's everything from specific exercises to high-dose medications to Botox injections and pacemakers,“ he says. “OAB is not something people have to endure because we can do all kinds of things.”