'I got my life back' Implant helped Pillager women get bladder problems under control.
Story/Heidi Lake
For the last 15 years, Sherry Pillatzki has spent much of her time holed up in her house, afraid to go out, for fear of having an embarrassing accident.
She even quit her job in medical records at a hospital in Buffalo because of her urinary incontinence issues.
She'd carry extra clothes, underwear, wipes and pads with her wherever she went, just in case.
"I just thought, well, I'm going to have to live with it.
“Pillatzki thought she tried everything countless medications and four surgeries, including one that put her bladder in a sling.
“For a while it would work,” Pillatzki said of the surgeries and medications. “Then I’d be back in the same position, I kind of just gave up after the surgeries and medications didn’t work.”
For more than 15 years Pillatzki, a mother of two – one baby was breach and weighed 10 pounds, 3.5 ounces, and the other was 11 pounds – would wake up in the middle of the night with an urge to go to the bathroom, but as soon as her feet hit the bedroom floor, it was too late.
Pillatzki saw doctors, a physical therapist and several specialists, even going to the University of Minnesota Medical Center, but nothing and no one could help.
Six years ago Pillatzki moved to Pillager with her longtime boyfriend and eventually saw Dr. Mike Cady; a gynecologist at Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby for her problem.
Since last fall, Mike Cady, along with his wife and colleague, Rachel Cady, also a gynecologist at CRMC, were trained and began doing InterStim Therapy with patients struggling with incontinence issues.
After reviewing Pillatzki’s case, Mike Cady determined Pillatzki was a candidate for InterStim Therapy.
“It’s for people who have tried everything,” Mike Cady said “it’s a horrible thing to have to live with. People become prisoners in their own home.”
Common types of bladder control problems include:
- Urgency/frequency. Urgency/frequency is when people have frequent, uncontrollable urges to urinate more than seven times a day.
- Urge incontinence. Urge incontinence is when people lose urine the moment they realize they have to go to the bathroom. They leak urine, sometimes after drinking a small amount of liquid or hearing running water.
- Urinary retention. Urinary retention is when people have trouble emptying their bladder. They produce only a weak, dribbling stream of urine, leak urine or have trouble feeling when their balder is full.
- Stress incontinence. Stress incontinence is when people leak urine when they contract their abdominal muscles by sneezing, coughing, laughing, exercising, bending, lifting, climbing stairs or getting up from a chair.
The Cadys said different things can contribute to bladder control problems, from nutrition – stay away from acidic foods like tomatoes and fruits, alcohol, caffeinated and carbonated beverages – to diabetes and spinal cord injuries.
Thirty-three million women suffer from urge incontinence, the most common bladder control problem. Of those 33 million women, the Cady’s said 2-3 million won’t respond to medication or physical therapy treatments.
“This is a much more common problem for women because of having babies, being pregnant and just being a woman,” said Annette Belfiori, a physical therapist at St.Joseph’s Medical Center.
Because they were seeing so many patients with incontinence issues in their Crosby practice, the Cady’s decided to get trained on InterStim Therapy; a low risk procedure with an approximate 70 percent success rate.
The Cadys have done six procedures and so far, they’ve all been successful. Even for patients like 67iyear-old Pillatzki, who has seemingly tried everything else.
Rachel Cady recalled one of her patients who has InerStim Therapy; a woman in her 30s who had three children and was getting up 10 times a night to go to the bathroom. The problem, and lack of sleep, caused her to become depressed.
“It can make a great impact on the quality of life, Mike Cady said.
InterStim Therapy works with the sacral nerves, located near the tailbone, which control the bladder and the muscles related to urinary function. Bladder control problems occur when the brain and sacral nerves don’t communicate properly.
InterStim Therapy is a silver dollar-sized device, similar to a pacemaker, implanted in the upper buttock that stimulates the sacral nerves. The device has different programs that can be changed wirelessly, allowing a patient to find the program (amount of stimulation) their nerves need to function properly.
The implantation procedure takes about one hour.
Mike Cady said patients shouldn’t be embarrassed to talk to doctors about incontinence issues because help is available.
“Many patients are embarrassed to bring it up. Unless we ask, they don’t bring it up,” he said
Pillatzki is glad she got help.
“I don’t have the fear I used to,” she said. “I don’t worry about it as much, but it’s always there.
Pillatzki said in her case, her bladder didn’t signal her brain saying it was time to go to the bathroom until it was too late.
“On the whole, I don’t even know I have this (implant) inside of me,” Pillatzki said of the InterStim.
So far, it’s working, Pillatzki’s incontinence issues aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be.
“I’m glad I did it,” she said, “I figure, I got my life back.”
After 12 months, InterStim patients report success rated of 79 percent for those suffering from urge incontinence, 64 percent for urgency/frequency and 77 percent for urinary retention. After five years, success rates drop slightly.
Physical therapy is usually recommended to patients with incontinence problems before and sometimes after surgery.
Bellfiori said she sees several patients every day with incontinence issues.
“Each person needs a different approach,” she said of helping patients with different types of bladder problems.
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