I'm a 23 year old woman and for years now I've been struggling with overactive bladder disorder. When I was first diagnosed by a doctor he told me to try bladder training, which I did, and my symptoms improved to a somewhat more manageable state, but never truly went away. Now, over the last couple of months, it seems to have gotten as bad as ever before for reasons I don't know, and it is seriously affecting my life and has been making me pretty miserable to be honest; I have since been to the doctor's again and am currently taking Solifenacin tablets, though they haven't seemed to have started working yet.
I never seem to leak thankfully, but just get an intense urge to urinate even when I shouldn't need to, which causes me a lot of panic if I can't reach a bathroom. Often it is the random urge that causes me to panic, but often also I wonder if my anxiousness about not reaching a toilet in time is in turn also causing the urges; if I'm on a car journey, for example, and the person driving the car decides to take a longer route or stop off somewhere else before I reach my destination, I can't help but realise that I'm now even longer away from reaching a toilet, which then makes me feel a little more aware of my bladder, and then before long the urge gets gradually stronger until my heart starts racing, palms start sweating and I'm feeling thoroughly awful until I reach a toilet. When I feel the urge to go, I feel like I cannot talk to anyone or do anything aside from getting myself to a bathroom as fast as possible, which makes me worry a lot about applying for jobs and going out and socialising. It has come to the point where some days I barely even go outside much out of fear that that urge is going to happen when I am too far away from the toilet.
The worst part of it is, I think, that in my mind, my fears are 'rational'; there might well be a time when I can't reach a toilet, I could leak at any time and it could be really embarrassing, just because I haven't before doesn't mean I can't, it's really hard to disprove that in my head. But I wonder if that absolute panic I feel might actually be making it harder to get better, if I am always so hyper-concious of any potential feelings of urgency all the time. Does anyone know of any way to control this better, or have any advice for any other ways I could manage this disorder that might make me feel more in control? I'd really appreciate any advice at all, it probably seems like a silly thing to a lot of people but it has honestly begun to make me really quite unhappy lately.
