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The Mayo Clinic Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Program at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota offers several bladder and bowel management options for people with a neurogenic bladder or bowel.
Bladder management options for people with a neurogenic bladder include:
- Education. Staff provides you with comprehensive patient education regarding neurogenic bladder symptoms and management.
- Medications. Your doctor may prescribe medications to improve bladder function, such as reduce bladder contractions, lower urinary frequency, improve loss of bladder control (incontinence), increase bladder storage or empty the bladder.
- Clean technique intermittent catheterization. In clean technique intermittent catheterization (CIC), you or a health care professional inserts a thin tube (catheter) through the urethra and into your bladder several times during the day to empty your bladder.
- Continuous catheter drainage. A health care professional may insert a catheter through your urethra or abdominal wall and into your bladder to continuously empty your bladder.
- Surgical intervention. Doctors trained in bladder management (urologists) may perform bladder reconstructive surgery that may resolve or improve bladder symptoms and management.
- Follow-up care. Doctors and other specialists trained in neurogenic bladder management and treatment provide follow-up care.
Bowel management options for people with a neurogenic bowel include:
- Education. Staff provides you with comprehensive education regarding neurogenic bowel symptoms and management.
- Medications. Your doctor may prescribe medications to manage timing and consistency of bowel movements.
- Anal irrigation. Anal irrigation is a new conservative bowel management therapy to reduce constipation and assist in effective bowel movement and management.
- Surgical intervention. Surgeons trained in bowel surgery (colorectal surgeons) may perform reconstructive surgery that may resolve difficulties in bowel management.
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