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When you're just getting started with VESIcare, you may experience symptom relief in two weeks, but some people may require several weeks longer. Your bladder symptoms didn't start overnight, and your relief won^t start overnight either.
You may want to keep track of your symptoms to see your progress. For instance, you can pick a day of the week, or a special date of the month. On that date, keep track of your bladder symptoms and look at your progress from week to week.
Depending on your bladder symptoms, your doctor may suggest "behavioral techniques" such as:
- Kegel exercises (exercises you do to strengthen your pelvic muscles)
- Bladder training (going to the bathroom at regular times, like every two hours)
- Keeping tabs on how much liquid you drink when it's hard to get to a bathroom
These techniques alone might not be enough. You might be doing some of these things already, and yet you still worry about leaking. That's why your doctor may suggest a prescription medicine like VESIcare.
A word about leakage
What's important to consider is there are different causes of bladder leakage.
- Leakage that comes after an urge may be caused by the condition of overactive bladder.
- On the other hand, some people experience leakage only when they laugh, cough, sneeze, jump, or lift something heavy. This type of bladder symptom may be part of a condition called stress incontinence. Stress incontinence is often due to a weakness in the pelvic area (and not due to signals sent to the bladder).
- Many people who leak can have a mixed condition (sometimes called "mixed incontinence") which means having symptoms of both overactive bladder and stress incontinence.
VESIcare is only for overactive bladder, not for stress incontinence. If you have a condition with mixed symptoms, VESIcare can help treat the overactive bladder part of your leakage. Talk to your doctor to see what type of condition you might have, and what you might be able to expect from treatment with VESIcare. |
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