Question
Hello, My daughter is thirteen and has been incontinent her entire life; she has very little urinary control in the daytime and has never gone more than two weeks without wetting the bed at night. She had surgery at three years old to correct a bladder reflux problem on her left side. She simply does not feel the urge to urinate until it's too late. This has caused her more and more embarrassment as she gets older. She has been on many drugs which usually help only a little, primarily ditropan, for the last ten years or so. Her urologist continues to insist that she will "outgrow" her incontinence, especially at puberty, however, she has progressed smoothly through puberty with no let up of her incontinence. She, and we her parents, are all getting very frustrated. A nurse just suggested to me that chiropractic treatment might help. we've never considered this to be an option...could you shed some light on this?
thank you  

Answer
Aimee,

Thanks for the question. This is a horrible problem for a young girl, I hope I can help.

I will start with this: I have practiced 15 years and probably seen at least 50 children, boys and girls, with the same story as your daughters.  The poor kids feel awful about it.  After treating them with chiropractic, sometimes acupuncture and sometimes nutrition, I have had a 100% success rate in resolving incontinence in children.  

Often times it is simple as manipulation of the lumbar spine.  The exact functional abnormality is unknown.  But many guess that it is an irritation of the sacral and lumbar nerve roots that go to the bladder. Because the nerve roots are irritated, they are less sensitive to stimulus of bladder stretch. Therefore, when the bladder is full, the stimulus doesn't alert the child.  With chiropractic treatment, the irritation is eliminated and better function restored.

My latest case was about 3 months ago.  A 7 year old boy of a friend of mine.  We were talking and I told her to bring him in.  He was wetting the bed only at night, but every night.  After his initial treatment, no bedwetting.  We treated him 3 times per week for 3 weeks then once a week for about a month.  He had only one episode during that time.  Now I adjust him when I see him at his house or whenever as we are friends.

I recommend giving it a try.  It isn't painful or expensive and it just may change your daughter's life.

God Bless,

Dr. Boss