Urodynamic Bladder Measurement

Urodynamic testing measures how the urinary bladder behaves in women who have bladder problems and urinary incontinence. Urodynamic testing is very useful in helping to determine how well the urinary bladder stores and empties urine. Dr. Pizarro recommends this measurement for women who suffer from leakage of urine, frequent urination, having to get up at night to urinate and those with disorders of pelvic support.

For such patients, the doctor will make sure that there's no bladder infection causing the symptoms. After that, the urodynamic measurement can be performed in the office in a very short amount of time. Urodynamics is a painless test that involves placing a small catheter in the urinary bladder and another one for a short distance into the rectum to measure pressures inside the abdomen and bladder. The bladder is then slowly filled with sterile water to measure the size, pressure and sensitivity of the bladder.

During this gentle test, patients are asked to cough and strain while very specific measurements are taken using computerized equipment and fiber-optic technology. At the same time, the patient is evaluated to see if there is leakage or spasm of the bladder. When the patient's bladder is full with water, she then voids into a special commode to see how well she is able to empty her bladder.

Computerized graphs which display a great deal of useful information are then generated. Dr. Pizarro carefully reviews the information to see whether there are any visible causes of the symptoms that the patient is experiencing. Such causes could be a very overactive bladder, a weakened opening of the bladder (the urethra), a weak bladder muscle, or blockage of urinary flow.

Although no test is perfect, Dr. Pizarro finds urodynamic measurement very useful in counseling patients and as a very important part of helping to determine treatments. In particular, when a patient is considering surgery for repair of urinary leakage or disorders of pelvic support, urodynamic measurements help get as much information about how the bladder is behaving.

Call today for an appointment if you have urinary incontinence, and ask us if urodynamic testing can help you.