Is This Innovative Bladder Pain Treatment Right for You?

Discover how Signature Healthcare’s innovative bladder pain treatment options can help relieve discomfort, reduce inflammation, and restore your quality of life with personalized, science-backed care.

Let’s get personal:

• Do you feel the need to urinate a lot?
• Do you feel pain or burning when you go?
• Does the feeling persist or perhaps worsen as your bladder fills?

For many people, bladder pain is a chronic condition that hurts their quality of life.

Not so long ago, if someone came to a doctor with bladder pain syndrome — interstitial cystitis — the physician would conduct a urinalysis and perhaps immediately prescribe an antibiotic if they suspected a urinary tract infection (UTI). However, there were instances where patients with achy bladders had conditions other than a UTI, leading to the overuse of antibiotics in this scenario.

Today, to avoid needlessly prescribing antibiotics, doctors first grow and examine a culture in the lab. Using this method, we can better pinpoint the patient’s specific condition (for example, pelvic floor dysfunction) and confidently refer them to the right pelvic floor physical therapist to treat it.

What Causes Bladder Pain?

Many factors can cause a painful bladder. When Signature Healthcare provides bladder pain treatment, we consider not just symptoms but lifestyle factors.

For example, foods or beverages you consume may irritate your bladder and call for dietary adjustments. Or, we may refer you to pelvic floor physical therapy to learn tools for activating calming mechanisms within your nervous system and for lengthening your pelvic floor muscles.

If all else fails, we’ll recommend shockwave therapy, a new treatment for interstitial cystitis combined with pelvic floor physical therapy.

Bladder Pain Treatment With SoftWave™ Shockwave

An array of devices brand themselves as “shockwave” therapy, but many simply generate radial waves that create “beneficial trauma” at a superficial level, with limited gains.

Painful bladders call for a treatment that penetrates deeper.

SoftWave™ shockwave therapy, a form of extracorporeal shock wave therapy, is a non-invasive treatment that uses acoustic waves to stimulate the body’s natural healing. It’s a useful component in treating a variety of conditions, from chronic wounds to musculoskeletal pain to inflammation.

At Signature Healthcare, we refer to the SoftWave shockwave device in physical therapy (PT) as a new treatment for bladder pain. Waves from the device effectively penetrate 12 centimeters, reaching the bladder in a way unachievable through PT alone. Here are three powerful reasons this innovative bladder pain treatment could be the solution you’ve been searching for:

• SoftWave reduces inflammation. The shockwave device lessens tension in the muscles around the bladder and pelvic floor and, most critically, pushes out inflammation that’s causing pain.
• The device helps regenerate cells. Over the course of a few treatments, SoftWave activates stem cell production, stimulates blood flow, and aids chronic wound healing, among other benefits.
• The shockwave device offers multifaceted relief. Similar to autoimmune illnesses, chronic bladder pain is typically complex, manifesting not just as pain and inflammation but also reduced bladder capacity, increased urgency and frequency, and even dermatologic issues. With SoftWave, we can treat patients across these conditions.

Not a Silver Bullet

Our goal with SoftWave is to stimulate the brain to commence the phases of healing: pro-inflammatory, anti-inflammatory, and stem-cell activation.

But we don’t consider the device to be a silver bullet. Rather, we continue to focus on your lifestyle. We consider what you eat and drink, and in what quantities, and help activate the calming area of your nervous system that releases muscle tension.

SoftWave is generally safe and well-tolerated by most patients with bladder issues. We do, however, avoid its use on patients who:

• Take pain medications (such as Tylenol) or use ice or other anti-inflammatories daily
• Received steroid or cortisone injections in the last 30 days

Anti-inflammatories and steroids can interfere with SoftWave’s effectiveness, leaving the patient in the pro-inflammatory stage… and achy as a result.

Tell Us Where It Hurts

In applying SoftWave to relieve your bladder pain, our first goal is to reproduce your symptoms.

Most patients have random, uncomfortable scar tissue or a slightly knotty muscle here and there, but we’re looking instead for that specific area of bladder pain that brought you to our office.

When applied to normal tissue, the shockwave may feel like a tapping sensation, but when the wave locates the injured tissue, you’ll recognize pain. Communicate this pain level clearly throughout treatment.

When we locate the specific pain point, we bring your pain level up to four or five on a zero to 10 pain scale and temporarily sustain it there. We help you convey your discomfort level, then begin to address the inflammation and reduce your pain level to two or less.

New Treatments for Bladder Pain

As with any new medical procedure, it’s important to have a well-rounded discussion with your doctor about new treatments for interstitial cystitis. However, shockwave therapy isn’t common yet, and in primary care settings, many physicians are unaware of its benefits or availability.

But your Signature Healthcare team is well-informed of new bladder pain treatments. We provide a comprehensive evaluation to determine if you’re a suitable candidate for SoftWave shockwave therapy.

I like my patients to understand that passive physical therapies — such as shockwave treatment alone — won’t necessarily “fix” their issue. These modalities are valuable tools, but they work best when combined with active strategies like lengthening muscles, downregulating the nervous system, and possibly adjusting lifestyle habits. It’s similar to when a patient comes to us with osteoarthritis of the knee: while we can offer treatment, we can’t eliminate the arthritis itself. Long-term improvement often requires a multifaceted approach.

Rather, our mission is to give you the tools you need to reduce your inflammation and pain, relax your muscles, and induce calming. You’ll become stronger, more stable, and more mobile, with better functional movement.

You’ll cope well with bladder pain, not just when you leave our office but in the long term as well.

Let’s have a chat.