Hi
It's a long time since I visited and I thought I would quickly check back here to see how you are all doing.
Post TVT I have been getting on with my life but I have discovered that one's brain can play tricks and make all one's anxieties worse.
Last year (2012 that is) was one of the worst of my life with five deaths of people who mattered to me (my Dad, two friends and both parents-in-law - with whom I was very close)....
During the periods of acute stress, those weeks immediately after the deaths when one is occupied with administrative requirements, I completely forgot about the urge incontinence bit...that had remained slightly there, in the background sort of thing ....BUT, as soon as the worst of each was over, I seemed to have a relapse with acute anxiety about dribbling. My intellect told me that the dribbles were so tiny (hardly dampening the pantliner and then only in the teeniest of drops), but the emotional part of my brain (perhaps the bit that was most stressed by the other events in my life) just threw me into a panic over these obsessions. Not only did I fear that the TVT was losing its effect after only a couple of years, I found myself doing the old - go to the loo at the last minute before leaving the house just in case - thing.
To cut a long story short: telling myself that it was my brain playing tricks, means I have forced myself to go back to the bladder retraining tips that I have spoken about earlier. Don't respond to the signals right away, try to get busy doing something else, repeat "it's my brain playing tricks" or "I won't give in" to myself over and over for a moment or two.
And it has worked - though I am still prone, at times of other anxiety, to get the old fears back.
So I want to say that one really can re-programme the brain to help! It takes effort and attention and cannot replace proper medical assistance be it TVT or oestrogen cream or any one of the new devices on the market to help strengthen the pelvic floor muscles.
It just seems to me that we are afraid of admitting any emotional/psychological aspects in case some person in authority says "it's all in your head"....
.
We know our bodies and should trust ourselves to be brave and admit that brains are funny things; they can make us happy or sad, positive or negative and yes, they can make our symptoms physically worse if we obsess about them. If you are somebody currently struggling with the anxieties and fears, or the disappointment that some treatment has not been the cure one hoped, be brave, stand up to your brain because my own experience suggests that it can be a tyrant.
BTW, this is NOT suggesting that you are not touch enough if the anxieties run away with you. It is really HARD. I just want to encourage you to keep trying. Good luck.
