I was under a lot of stress back in November due to school. One day I drank a lot of soda. 15 mins after I finished drinking the soda, I felt this sharp pain in my stomach. From then on, I had to use the bathroom every second of that day! I would probably use the bathroom between 20-30 times. A few weeks after that incident, the frequency/urgency subsided. I still had to use the bathroom quite often. I visited the doctor who took blood tests, urine cultures and he couldn't find anything. After the doctor visit, I felt a little better. I then began drinking more soda. By the time January came by, the bladder problems regressed back to how it originally was. I stopped drinking soda completely and a few weeks after the january incident, the feeling subsided. Now it is April and I still have the frequency/urgency feeling. There is no pain and it feels normal when i urinate. I use the bathroom about 8-10 times a day. I don't have any problem holding it in for large amounts of time. However, the urgency is there throughout the day.

The doctor recommended that I do a cystoscopy, but my urologist is against it. I've read that it could be IC. I really don't know what it is.

Another problem that goes with it, is that my stomach is constantly bloated and I feel a lot of pressure in my stomach and bladder.

Somebody help!

You don't say how old you are, but when I was 30 I began having similar symptoms (feeling like I had to urinate all day but still able to hold it in), and I was diagnosed by a urologist with something called bladder neck obstruction.

The doctor told me that the problem sometimes surfaces among males in their late 20's, early 30's, and is basically a structural defect that slows the flow of urine out of the bladder and makes you feel like you have to go all the time. A cytoscopy, which another doctor gave me months before my final diagnosis, showed absolutely no problems, and that doctor waved me off, saying to just ignore the symptom and it would go away.

I was diagnosed by the second doctor, who used a kind of urine flow test, the name of which I forgot. It involves inserting a catheter into your urethra (ouch, I know), and then filling the bladder with water. You're told to hold the water in as long as you can and then let it out. From reading the results, the urologist can tell you if your system is operating properly. The test is pretty much painless except when they insert the catheter at the beginning and extract it at the end, but it's like a pinprick each time. I walked home 2 miles immediately afterward.

The second doctor prescribed a drug called Flomax, which is typically given to older men who have prostate problems. But it worked well for me. I'm two years out, and I'm currently trying to get off the drug to see if I can go without it or if the symptoms return.

Hope that helps.

Dan