Blessing offers new treatment for common urologic condition

QUINCY — Blessing Health’s urology team is offering a new treatment for a frustrating and common medical problem that affects millions of adults.

The condition is called urge incontinence — the sudden, intense urge to urinate followed by an involuntary loss of urine. It affects mostly people over the age of 50, and a majority of those are women.

The new treatment is called eCoin, named such because the device involved is the size of a nickel. The device is placed underneath the skin of a patient’s ankle. Twice a week, the eCoin sends a pulse of energy through the tibial nerve — the largest nerve in the human body, running from the foot to the spine and connected to the same portion of the spine as are the nerves that help control the bladder.

The nerve stimulation provided by eCoin helps improve bladder control, typically within 4-8 weeks of placement. The benefits of the treatment can be expected to last years before the device runs out of power and must be replaced with a new one.

Blessing is the only provider in the region offering this urge incontinence treatment option. Besides the medical benefits of eCoin, Blessing urologists say the device is simple to place. The treatment requires no action or effort from the patient.

In a press release, Dr. David Lieber, board-certified urologist at Blessing Health, said, “This is a treatment I would want for my own family member. When we evaluated this technology, it seemed to us to be the future of bladder treatment.”

Patients and their doctors have many options for urge incontinence treatment, including behavioral modifications and medications. When first line treatments are not effective for a patient, Blessing offers a menu of other therapy options, now including the eCoin procedure.

“We believe eCoin will be a better fit for many patients who have not found any other way to effectively control their urge incontinence,” said Dr. Bradley Holland of the Blessing Health urology team.

Lieber and Holland were among the first wave of providers nationwide to be eCoin-trained. They also are training other urologists on eCoin.

“The data behind eCoin is great, and we are excited to bring it to the area,” Lieber said. “eCoin company representatives were impressed with our team and processes. They made Dr. Holland and me proctors. We’re going to be teaching doctors in other facilities how to do this.”

For more information on the care provided by Blessing Health’s urology team, go to blessinghealth.org/urology.