There are lots of treatments for overactive bladder but not all of the treatments appeal to everyone.  You might be looking for something that feels more holistic to you.  Or maybe you want to avoid traditional medicine or medications.  What alternative treatments are out there for overactive bladder (OAB)?  Let’s explore this topic together.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture stimulates the central nervous system and promotes physical and emotional well being.  Theoretically, it makes sense that acupuncture would help overactive bladder symptoms.  There are some studies that look at acupuncture and overactive bladder.  The quality of the studies is not great but what is out there is reassuring.  Acupuncture has a positive effect on bladder symptoms and is comparable to anticholinergic medications (works in about 60% of people).  There are also very few complications or risks with acupuncture.  And while it may not work, it definitely is not going to make you worse.  This makes acupuncture a reasonable alterantive treatment for OAB.

Yoga

I really want to be able to say that yoga will help overactive bladder but there isn’t any data to support this.  Yoga has been shown to help with stress management as well as anxiety and depression.  It has also been shown to decrease inflammation.  Theoretically, it should help your bladder.  But while it may help you in many ways, there is no data to show that yoga minimizes bladder symptoms.

Meditation

Meditation that focuses on stress relief, may help overactive bladder symptoms.  There is only one study and it included a small group of women.  But this pilot study showed that meditation helped 71% of women and of those women, it continued to help 80% of them at one year.  That is as good as other first and second line treatments.  While we need more research on meditation, it is reasonable to consider this as an alternative treatment for OAB.

Herbal supplements and supplements

Little work that has been done in this area.  Here are the supplements that may work as alternative treatments for OAB.

• There is one study looking at Gosha-jinki-gan,  a traditional Chinese blended herbal medicine.  Urinary frequency improved in 53% while 9% had side effects from the medication.
• Pumpkin seed oil has also been shown to help with frequency, urgency and leaking without severe side effects.  This is commercially available as AZO bladder control.
• Vitamin D deficiency is also associated with overactive bladder symptoms.  Read more about this here.
• There is one study showing that magnesium hydroxide can help.  Magensium hydroxide minimized urgencyand leaking in about half of women and was well tolerated.

I wish there was more data on these alternative treatments.  I do think that there is very little risk in trying most of them.  And since many, like yoga, meditation and acupuncture, have other health benefits, you may have unintended benefits.  Like less stress.  And we all could use that!

Forde JC et al.  The role of acupuncture in managing overactive bladder;a review of the literature. Int J Urogynecol 2016;27(11):1645-51.

Wieland LS et al. Yoga for treating urinary incontinence in women.  Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2019;2(2):CD012668

Baker J et al. Mindfulness-based stress reduction for treatment of urinary urge incontinence: a pilot study. Female Pelvic Med Reconstruct Surg 2012;18:46-9.

Chughtai B et al. Use of herbal supplements for overactive bladder. Rev Urol 2013;15(3):93-6.

Nishimura M et al. Pumpkin seed oil extracted from cucurbita maxima improves urinary disorder in human overactive bladder. J Tradit Complement Med 2014;4(1):72-4.

Gordan D et al. Double-blind, placebo controlled study of MgHO2 for treatment of sensory urgency and detrusor instability: preliminary results. BJOG 1998;1.5:667-9.