Painful Bladder Syndrome Fix

Bladder pain that’s keeping you up at night, sending you to the bathroom frequently and just always on your mind can be a huge pain and extremely frustrating. You can’t drink more water because then you have to pee every 5 minutes and if you don’t drink water it still hurts and you’re dehydrated. This is very common with bladder pain syndrome. 

The most common symptoms of Bladder Pain Syndrome are: 

1. Pain with bladder filling that usually reduces after peeing. Many people feel that it goes away very briefly then increases. Sometimes returning back to pre-urination intensity in as little as 5 minutes.  

2. Typically we think of pain with urination as a sign of a UTI or STI but in this case it’s because the pelvic floor muscles are tense and squeezing the urethra and urine is being forced through an even tinier hole than normal. 

3. A constant or frequent urge to pee that can feel like you never completely empty your bladder or that the urge returns very quickly and you find yourself returning to the bathroom every hour or even more often just to get a few moments of relief. 

4. If you wake up at night to pee occasionally you’re doing alright but waking up every night or multiple times a night disrupts your sleep and leaves you feeling more exhausted and less able to handle the bladder pain during the day.  

5. Pain could be increased by certain foods or drinks. Everyone is a different but typically sodas, alcohol and sugary or carbonated drinks can be irritating. Acidic foods such as tomatoes, lemons, berries and coffee can also increase the pain or lead to more frequent bathroom trips. 

The Good News is Painful Bladder Syndrome is Completely Treatable

Nutrition review and cutting out foods that cause more irritation is a great start to calming down the irritation in the bladder.  This will usually get you some quick relief but won’t resolve everything. Later on you can add these foods back in once the other causes are fixed. 

The lining of the bladder is irritated in Painful Bladder Syndrome (PBS) and needs some TLC. To take care of it, aloe capsules (like these from Desert Harvest) are helpful and coating the bladder walls and soothing them just like aloe helps your sunburn. (Remember to check with your doctor before taking supplements).  

Another reason the bladder wall is irritated is increased sensitivity in the nervous system. If you’ve been experiencing high stress, anxiety or depression the nervous system becomes more aware of everything going on and is a bit over-reactive to stimuli that weren’t irritating before like the coffee you’ve had every day for 5 years and now it’s a problem.  It’s not always emotional factors that put the nervous system on high alert though. Dehydration, lack of sleep, not enough exercise or too much sitting can all increase the alert system.  Most of us are struggling with multiple, or all, of these areas but that can be overwhelming so I suggest picking 1 to start with. Whichever is the easiest and get a win to build on. 

Dehydration

• Adding 1 cup of water a day will make a big difference. 

• Ultimately aim for your pee to be light yellow. 

Sleep

• Going to bed earlier is tough but your body will thank you. 

• Set up some good sleep hygiene habits and aim to fall asleep by 10. Your best sleep is 10pm-2am so make those hours count. 

Exercise

• You don’t need to run out and join a high intensity class. Start with going for a 20 minute brisk walk every day. This gets your heart rate up and will help activate the parasympathetic system when you finish the walk. A 20 minute walk decreases pain! 

Counseling

• If you are dealing with stress, anxiety, depression or an unsupportive environment meet with a counselor. They’ll be able to help you problem solve strategies to improve your emotional/mental health so you can feel your best. 

Now that we’ve talked lifestyle and emotional factors in PBS lets look at the pelvic floor! The muscles of the pelvic floor are often very tense in people dealing with painful bladder syndrome. This leads to more pain, difficulty emptying the bladder and can even give you an urge to pee when your bladder isn’t really full. Learning to lengthen and relax the pelvic floor with diaphragmatic breathing and other exercises can be extremely helpful.  

We pair those exercises with improving hip, back and ribcage movement so that the pelvic floor is better able to relax and breathing into your lower ribs comes easily to you. 

Getting all of these pieces happy can take some time but you should see improvements along the way! Once you feel 100%, we add back in all your normal activities plus the new habits you’ve built and then we talk about adding in foods and drinks that were removed. These are tried 1 at a time so you know which ones are still aggravating and which ones are okay to enjoy. 

The goal is for you to get back to a better life without pain, nighttime bathroom trips and a constant urge to pee  and with a great health routine that prevents painful bladder syndrome from making another appearance in your life.