www.incontinentsupport.org

After my last Urologist appointment, I started taking Myrbetriq for OAB. After trying so many others, I wasn't very optimistic.

After 2 weeks it seemed to be the miracle drug people rave about: urges were almost non-existent, capacity was up, frequency was down, almost no noticeable side-effects, and most importantly I was sleeping through most nights, having only to get up at most once on occasion.

Sometime between weeks 2 and 3 the urges I typically experience morphed into sharp stabbing spasms. Uncomfortable yes, but not frequent and not accompanied by the sense have having to go and most importantly no leaks. I figured living with the spasms was a more than fair deal for all of the other benefits I'd experienced.

Then came week 4. The stabbing spasms slowly increased in frequency, from a few times a day to maybe a couple of times an hour at their worst. Still not too bad. At least I wasn't leaking. Feeling really good with my newly-regained control, I went on one of my car trips without protection. The trip out was fine with nothing more than a couple of the now familiar stabbing spasms. I made it to my usual stopping points with no incidents. The trip back was a bit rougher. I had spasms the entire trip and was quite uncomfortable. But I still made it without leaking. All was good.

After getting home, I was outside dealing with things that needed dealt with after time away from home, when with little warning an urge struck and I was left with standing in the garden with wet pants. Quite upsetting after more than a month of no accidents, but I cleaned up, changed, shrugged it off as best I could, and continued with things needing to be done. A couple of hours and several more spasms later disaster struck. While making dinner things had finally had enough. With no warning my bladder completely emptied itself. This wasn't just a wet streak down my pants, but puddles on the floor and a trail of urine all the way to the bathroom.

Twice, within a couple of hours of each other, to an extent I'd never experienced before. I lost it. I've never felt so helpless and completely out of control, all being compounded by my partner cleaning up after me. I sat on the toilet and cried.


That was a week ago. I'm still experiencing both the good (fewer urges, better capacity, better sleep) and the bad (spasms and more frequent, unpredictable small leaks). The risk of leaks seems highest at the end of a day with lots of spasms. Which makes sense if the muscle is just exhausted. And I think alcohol increases that risk a lot more than before, but I'm still experimenting with that.


Now I find myself torn: Do I stop taking it and go to the restroom frequently with the risk of leaking on the rare occasion I can't get to a restroom within a few minutes? Or stay with it and still rely on some kind protection, hoping it gets better, and possibly figuring out the risk factors and mitigating them? Or stop taking it and go with protection 24/7?

MikeInSF

These spasms are not normal. You need to get in touch with your doctor and let him/her know about your spasms. Find out if you should stop the medication and if so, most important, how to stop. You may need to wean off of it. Stopping cold turkey of some medications can cause more problems.

You may have an allergy to this medication. Even if you tolerated it well for several weeks an allergy can develop over time.

An old nursing saying “Any person can be allergic to any medication”.

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RetiredRN

That's what I was thinking too. A bad reaction to the meds. If you can't get in to your doctor soon, try not taking any of them for a few days to see if your symptoms improve back to normal (or what ever happens). I've been on it twice, and it's not like it's a heart med so you can go off it completely with no bad effects.

If nothing good changes, or you get much worse, then start taking them again. If you improve at least so.e then consider not taking any more. Either way, still follow up with your doc on this asap.

That's my opinion at least, but I'm no doc though, so tread carefully with this regardless of anyone's advice.

Interesting observations. I hadn't thought of an allergic reaction.

I haven't been overly concerned by the stabbing spams myself because:

1) I've had them almost since the beginning, long before this med came into the picture, intermixed with the typical urge. Now the urges are gone, but the stabbing/poking spasm remains.

2) I haven't had difficulty urinating. No straining whatsoever.

3) Output is back to what I consider normal for me: 300-450ml each time ~3000ml/day.

4) I haven't had any other typical allergy symptoms.


A few google searches shows me that worsening symptoms is not unheard of with with Myrbetriq, and all the others it seems. It seems unusual to have both positive and negative results.

I'm rapidly losing hope for a successful outcome. I'll call my urologist's nurse in the morning and see what comes back.

Thanks got your thoughts.

In cases like these I always try and take the old "hope for the best, but expect the worst" approach. This way when a med or treatment fails, that's what 8 expected, so no bummer there. IF it ever succeeds then I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Try not to let it get to you too much, and hopefully you can still find some sort of resolution.

OP your results interest me. I'm on Myrbetriq for a few weeks now and had similar experience. Not really the miraculous dryness, more just a moderate symptom reduction but I get stabbing pains in my lower abdomen. The other side effects like dry mouth, confusion, headache are very minor compared to say Toviaz but these bladder stabbing pains are very annoying.

I'm telling my doctor monday to add this to the list of tried and failed meds.

Toviaz scared me. I was given a 2 week sample while wrangling was done with my insurance company to pay for it. That didn't happen before the end of the two weeks, and as I came off of it, I realized how much of a fog I had been living in. I couldn't remember much of the prior two weeks.

Yeah I didn't last a week on it.

I gave up on it after a month and a half, had the side effects similar to other bladder calming medications, but add in diarrhea which really was a pain to deal with, making my bladder problems seems like a walk in the park compared to diarrhea (I had to wear a diaper anyway for just in case) which made the wonder medication worthless for me.