Millions of Britons suffer from urinary incontinence, however Marlene Brown, 71, a retired secretary from Wembley in London had a new treatment for the problem.

“Around ten years ago I started needing to go to the toilet all the time — it felt as if something was  constantly pressing down on my bladder.  My life started to revolve around the bathroom. When I went out to the theatre, for example, with my husband Tom, I’d go before I left home, then at the station, before the show and during the interval. I tried drinking less so I wouldn’t feel so desperate, but I just ended up incredibly thirsty and with a headache.

After about a year of this I went to my GP — he said the problem was that my bladder muscles were contracting too readily. He prescribed drugs to relax the muscles and that helped a bit. I was also referred to a physiotherapist, who taught me daily exercises to strengthen my pelvic floor muscles. But I still had a constant urge for the bathroom and it was making my life miserable.”

Then last March Marlene saw an article in the Daily Mail about a new procedure where they stimulate a nerve in the ankle, which leads to the bladder, to get the bladder acting normally again. Her GP agreed to refer her to North Middlesex University Hospital where they were doing the surgery.

The new procedure involved putting a needle into her ankle for thirty minutes at a time, with an electrode under her foot to create a circuit. This would stimulate a nerve that runs from the spine to the ankle, passing the bladder on the way — thus getting the nerves sending normal signals again.

“I started the treatment in November, though I still didn’t quite believe it would work. First, they put a needle into the inside of my right ankle, about 2cm deep — I just felt a tiny prick, and didn’t need an anaesthetic. Then they put the electrode, which looked like a sticky pad, on the bottom of my foot. The needle was attached to a machine that emitted a small electric charge; it gave me a gentle tingling feeling in my toes. I was shown how to control the machine, gradually turning it up through the half-hour session.  Immediately after the treatment, out of habit I looked for the nearest toilet, but realised I didn’t need one.”

Over the next 4 months she had another 11 sessions of treatment. Soon after treatment started the feeling of urgency faded and by the end of the treatment she didn’t feel she needed to rush as she had done previously.

While doctors don’t know exactly how it works, stimulating the nerve with electricity seems to reset it; the nerve then stops sending the signals of fullness from the bladder. This operation carries a small risk of infection, and means a small scar and recovery time of two to three days.

Percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation, the procedure Mrs Brown had, is an exciting development and is an improvement on sacral nerve stimulation. It’s based on the same principle, nerve stimulation, but because it acts on the ankle, not the bladder, it’s less invasive and there’s no recovery time; that means the patient can go straight home afterwards.

Around five million women and two million men in Britain suffer from urinary incontinence, which can make life difficult and can even turn some people into virtual recluses because they’re frightened to leave the house. Stress incontinence, when people can leak when they laugh, sneeze or cough, can be made worse by childbirth or as the muscles supporting the bladder weaken as we age.

Urge incontinence causes you to feel you need to go urgently and really can’t hold on any longer. It’s a problem with the bladder and often develops as we get older. It’s thought that in urge incontinence, faulty nerve signals trigger small bladder contractions, meaning messages go to the brain telling it that the bladder needs to empty.

Psychological triggers such as anxiety, the sound of running water or even seeing your own front door, can worsen this feeling of urgency. Patients can try avoiding caffeine, which irritates the bladder and increases the feeling of urgency.

They may also be offered bladder retraining sessions — for example, deferring going to the toilet — and tightening the pelvic floor muscles so they can resist the urge.

Read more: //www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2107303/A-needle-ankle-beat-incontinence.html#ixzz1nhCGWjJV