Jaroslava, 85 years old

Overactive bladder problems run in our family. Even my mother was a frequent toilet user. I also began to notice that I was also a more of a “runner” to toilet and that being at toilet several times an hour was normal for me. However, I had it this way my whole life and did not address it in any way or seek any treatments. But as I got older, the problems started to get worse and became unbearable.

No matter where I went, I still had to carry diapers and knew where toilets were. Yet, sometimes I ended up with soaked underwear, and that was really embarrassing.

Having to always run to a bathroom was truly annoying and ruined everything in my life. Like during cooking when – hands dirty with dumplings and then I had to go quickly. Such a trivial thing, one could say during cooking, but it’s so life-destroying and time-consuming. Another example was travelling. I often went to another city, Pribram, and I always had to think ahead so I wouldn’t drink too much and had to plan all the possibilities of where to go to the toilet if necessary. I had to calculate any journey, because I couldn’t go anywhere by bus for more than an hour. In short, my diagnosis of overactive bladder was limiting me in everything, whether it was shopping, working, cooking or hobbies.

So, I started talking to doctors about it. First, I went to the gynecologist, where they prescribed me medication. But I’ve always had a bad relationship with pills. I try to avoid them as much as possible, but I thought I’d give it a try. But it wasn’t a good choice. The drugs didn’t do me any good mentally or physically, and there was no significant improvement to speak of.

I kept looking for ways to get off the pills and switch to some other treatment. Then I read an article from abroad that talked about a device that is inserted to the spine and solves the problems with frequent urination that bothered me the most. I thought I would try to inquire about it here in the Czech Republic and I emailed Motol Hospital Urology to see if they could give me more information. There they told me that they had an alternative for me and offered me stimulation with the URIS device. I didn’t know what it was all about, but I wanted to try anything that could help me. The fact that it was not a medication I took as a big plus.

At first, I commuted to Prague for the stimulations, but later I got the device for use at home, and that made my life much easier. Especially because I was prescribed with daily stimulation, so it would have been hard to commute daily.

I think the device itself is great. Not only was it the first thing that finally helped me, but it was easy to use and provided me time read during my stimulations than which is more time than I have had to read in my entire life. It provided a moment of peace to me whilst still treating me.

I first felt an improvement after about a month and half. Suddenly I noticed that I could last longer without peeing and I didn’t have to run to the bathroom right away, but I could walk in peace.

To sum it up, it’s true that I was a bit skeptical about the device at first, but I figured I had nothing to lose and I’m really glad I went for it. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is suffering from the same problem.

The treatment has given me back my freedom and saved me a lot of time by not having to go to the bathroom as often or having to deal with embarrassing situations with a wet laundry. My life is really better now.

Jaroslava, 85 years old