Constant urge to pee

Hey I got a question now... Can you have an infection in the SKIN of your urethra...but not in the actual bladder itself?

I recently developed this condition. A constant need to urinate. Even right after going to the bathroom. I had a UTI test yesterday and it was negative. Blood work was today to test for diabetes and prostate. I am only 45 and in pretty decent health. Although I am worried it could be either of these, my instincts tell me its not. Especially now that I have read so much about people with the same issues and dont mention the diagnoses being diabetes or prostate. 

I will tell everyone on here that anxiety could be the cause of your over-active bladder. In 2010 I was peeing 10-15 times a day. I had a family doctor and a urologist run every single test possible to figure out the cause. In the end, they both threw up their hands and said "i dont know". Prescribed me and over-active bladder medication that was $85/month, and sent me on my way. In 2012 I exploded into a full panic disorder. The bladder situation was without a doubt an indicator of an underlying nerve situation. Once I found the right anxiety medication, the over-active bladder went away.

There is a good chance this will be the diagnosis again for my current situation. Which would mean I have become immune to the anxiety meds that I have been taking. We'll see.  

Sounds a lot like an overactive bladder. I suffer from that it isn't constant but I frequently get the urge to go 

Ok so update guys. And thanks to everyone following this thread and if any of you are having issues yourselves still I hope things get better for you too. I'll try and continue to share my story, maybe it'll help someone else too.

So. Yesterday I started to try and take bladder training more seriously. This will take a while I know. I am trying so hard to not be discouraged.

I have bought probiotics for bladder health and general digestion. I also bought something for anxiety/mood? All 3 of which are from GNC because I can't afford actual meds.

SO. What I have been doing is going at 7am  a little after I wake up, and then trying to hold it until 3pm. The way I feel after I go is I do feel relief. But maybe 10 minutes later if even that long I start feeling discomfort. Minor but it's there. And it gradually gets worse and worse. It's not that I go to the bathroom and then have to go in 30 minutes. It's that I go and then a few minutes later I just "feel" a problem down there. I just feel it there..? But anyway. I'm able to hold it quite considerably long. I'm usually able to actually make it to 3pm without trouble. Could even hold it longer if I wanted to but I don't enjoy feeling uncomfortable for 7ish hours. Because that is what it's like. 7 hours of misery. Not an hour of peace and then start feeling miserable. An hour of feeling nothing sounds amazing...

Anyway. Maybe once or twice I'll actually feel MINOR leaking. Nothing to get me bent out of shape but I do feel it subtly happening but it subsides eventually. I am not sure what this is a sign of. And when it happens varies. It can happen closely after I had already went or maybe some hours after I went.

Both days I went at 3pm, I would take a nap that could range from 30-40 minutes. I'd wake up and instantly feel uncomfortable and want to go quite a bit. And this is usually when I cave in and go an extra time. But after that I can hold it for quite a while due to being on the computer and I guess occupying myself. I have to say this is very discouraging to me. Not knowing if my efforts are in vain. If I really should keep suffering by holding it in for hours and it never leading me anywhere. But at the same time I know I've beaten this before. Anxiety and teaching my bladder bad habits? If it's really that the only way to maybe fix it or see if they were the problem is to just not give up even results take a while.

I thought I was starting to get this under control but i swear yeaterday I felt like nothing had changed..

If you can hold from 7-3 the issue isn't an overactive bladder. The problem is how your brain is dealing with needing to pee. There is an old mantra; 

'We are what we think' 

You're constant worry means your brain is constantly searching for the sensation. Just like learning to play the piano, you're brain is gradually getting better and better at detecting these signals. Recent discoveries in Neuroplasticity show that a similar thing happens in people with chronic pain. Through focus they actually dedicate more nerones to detecting and reacting to the pain. This means that even when the cause of the pain disappears the pain continues. The brain needs less pain signals and your body is in more pain! 

*automatic blinking OFF* 

You see how you weren't even thinking about your blinking until this very moment? Now all of a sudden it's an issue? 

*by the way sorry about that, just wanted to illustrate the point* 

Could this be happening with your urge to urinate? Absolutely! I have been dealing with a similar for 10 years. I only recently found the answer and started unlearning this learned behaviour. 

Now I am not saying that there isn't some physical abnormality. However, if you can hold for 8 hours it isn't severe enough to require treatment. 

So what can you do? There is a book called 'The brain that heals itself' which describes how Dr Moscowitz retrained his mind to cure his chronic pain. I have been doing the same for my urge to urinate and I am starting to experience my first moments of freedom from the need to pee, where I total forget that I have spent the last ten years obsessed with my bladder, where the sensation abandons me completely. 

This is all of course just my theory but I'm happy to chat more. 

Good luck. And good thinking. After all, we are what we think. 

Straight talk about overactive bladder, because that is exactly what you're describing, even the coming and going of intensity of symptoms. I have been suffering from overactive bladder, or OAB, for almost twenty years. I first started noticing the frequency in college. I started seeing a urologist who prescribed Detrol LA and several other medications plus performed a urinary tract dilation several times. Urinary tract dilation is a procedure that is supposed to expand your urethra, allowing more urine to escape and aiding me to empty my bladder. This is achieved by numbing the urethra and inserting gradually bigger (metal?) sticks in order to stretch it. Neither the medicine nor the procedure worked. I later learned from my current urologist that urinary dilation is now thought to damage nerves causing incontinence. As a result, it supposedly fell out of favor many years before I had it done according to my current urologist. Sketchy. So I suffered for years, through pregnancy, which was awful, up until 2015 when I decided to try over the counter remedies such as oxybutynin. They too did not help. I then sought a new urologist in 2015 who praised all the new medicines available on the market since 2001 and started me on Vesicare, a very expensive medication not covered by my insurance at the time. It too did not help and my doctor just shrugged and said that was all he had. So on I trudged until I developed a disc herniation and mind numbingly painful sciatica down my right leg a year later. I started taking Gabapentin, a nerve medication, at the maximum dosage, 3 300mg pills 3x a day = 3800 mg. After I had surgery in May 2017 to repair the herniation I weaned off all my medicine and immediately had to go to the bathroom ALL the time, including at night. I took 3 pregnancy tests and had an emergency UTI check at my docs in case I had developed an infection from the surgery. All were negative. So I started googling my medications and OAB and sure enough, gabapentin popped up, but not in the way I was expecting. According to an article on the US National Library of Medicine, a rather surprising unexpected side effect of gabapentin is the calming of the nerves in the bladder greatly reducing urgency and frequency. Rather than causing my symptoms, it had been treating my symptoms and I had been too busy and in too much pain to notice. So I went back on gabapentin, just 1 300mg pill 3x a day = 900mg, and immediatly noticed an improvement. While I still had to go a lot throughout the day, the urgency wasn't constant and it didn't wake me up at night as much. We're talking once a night versus four or five times a night. However, we're wanting another baby and gabapentin causes early preterm labor so it had to go. Called my urologist and made an appt. Told him about the gabapentin and he scoffed, stating that it's not intended for OAB. Whatever. Asked him about other nonpharmacological treatments and he recommended percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation, or PTNS. This is basically where they put a 3" acupuncture needle into either ankle, attach an electrode to it, and send pulses of electricity up your leg on the nerve that runs to your bladder. It's supposed to calm the nerves in your bladder. Did it, didn't work. Now my options are botox injections, which are very risky because they can shut down the nerve instead of just calming it making it so you lose control of your bladder. No thanks. So now I'm miserable again until baby #2 comes along and I can start gabapentin again. I say all of this in case you find yourself in the same position with nothing working for you either. Good luck!

I feel like i have half given up. I dont think theres any hope anymore. There are times its bearible and other times i cant take it.

I dont think ill ever be happy again.