🔗 Work With Dr. Sonal: https://drsonalbarad.com/

For the first ten years of my career, I believed I knew how to fix bladder pain. I had the training, the clinical hours, and the results on paper. What I did not know was that those results stopped the minute my patients walked out the door.

If you have done pelvic floor physical therapy, you know exactly what I mean. You go in, things loosen up, you feel relief. A week later you are back to exactly where you started.

After 22 years and over 40,000 clinical hours treating women with bladder pain and urgency, this pattern became impossible to ignore.

In this episode, I am going to show you why the standard approach to bladder pain keeps women stuck in a loop, what is actually driving the symptoms that nobody is addressing, and what has to change before any of this gets resolved for good.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 I Was Wrong About Bladder Pain for a Decade. Here's What I Know Now.
2:41 The pelvic floor is a responder, not the cause (the jaw and stress analogy)
4:36 The four patterns driving most bladder symptoms
7:26 How to tell if your nervous system is driving your symptoms right now
9:19 What has to change: stop treating the symptom, treat the system
10:14 My personal story: my sister's wedding, tequila, and what I woke up to
13:58 The urge retraining exercise to start tonight

❓ QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Why does pelvic floor therapy help temporarily but symptoms always come back?
Pelvic floor therapy releases muscle tension but does not address why those muscles are guarding. The pelvic floor responds to signals from the nervous system, gut, or bladder-brain pathway. Until those drivers are addressed, releasing the muscles only buys time before the next flare.

What is urge retraining for interstitial cystitis?
Urge retraining teaches the brain to respond to urgency signals differently instead of running to the bathroom the moment the urge fires. By using thoracic breathing while pausing before responding to urgency, you gradually recalibrate how loudly the brain amplifies bladder signals and reduce the feedback loop that makes urgency worse over time.

How do you know if your nervous system is driving your IC symptoms?
If your symptoms consistently worsen with stress, poor sleep, or emotional chaos and improve during calmer periods or vacations, the nervous system is almost certainly the primary driver. The bladder is responding to the system it is connected to, not malfunctioning on its own.

📱 RESOURCES
Website: https://drsonalbarad.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsonalbarad/
Masterclass: https://drsonalbarad.com/register

🔔 New episodes on IC, bladder pain, and root-cause treatment drop every week. Subscribe so you do not miss what is coming next on this channel.

ABOUT DR. SONAL BARAD
Dr. Sonal Barad is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and board-certified pelvic rehab specialist with 22 years of clinical experience and over 40,000 clinical hours treating bladder pain. She has personally lived with IC, researched it for over two decades, and helped more than 10,000 women reclaim their lives. Her approach addresses the whole system: nervous system, gut, hormones, and pelvic floor rather than treating the bladder in isolation. She is known for helping women find lasting relief after years of dismissal and failed treatments.

#InterstitialCystitis #BladderPain #PelvicFloor #ICTreatment #BladderHealth

🔗 Work With Dr. Sonal: https://drsonalbarad.com/

Your urologist recommended bladder instillations. Maybe you have already done rounds of them. They helped for a while. Then they stopped.

If you noticed the relief window getting shorter each time, that is not your bladder getting worse. That is proof the procedure was never touching the actual source.

No bladder procedure can fix what it never reaches. In this episode, Dr. Sonal explains why instillations, hydrodistension, and Botox all follow the same arc, what is actually generating your symptoms, and the one exercise you can do tonight to start interrupting the pattern.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Why Bladder Instillations Stop Working (And What to Do Instead)
1:10 - The Bladder Lining Theory Your Urologist Is Working From
2:13 - Why Instillation Relief Keeps Wearing Off
3:43 - Patient Case: 16 Years of Instillations With No Lasting Relief
7:15 - Your Bladder Is Not the Source of the Pain
9:10 - 3 Questions to Know If Your Nervous System Is Driving This
11:38 - Why No Bladder Procedure Will Ever Hold Long-Term
14:25 - The Diaphragm-Pelvic Floor Connection Explained
17:43 - Pelvic Pressure Reset: The Exercise to Do Tonight

❓ QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Q: Why do bladder instillations stop working over time?
A: Instillations reduce local inflammation and calm nerve firing at the bladder, but they never address the nervous system driving the signals. Because the root source is never treated, symptoms return and the relief window gets shorter with each round.

Q: Does hydrodistension provide lasting relief for interstitial cystitis?
A: Hydrodistension temporarily stretches the bladder and reduces sensitivity, but relief typically lasts only 2 to 3 months before symptoms return. The procedure cannot address the nervous system dysregulation generating urgency and pain signals at the source.

Q: Why does IC keep coming back after bladder treatments?
A: IC symptoms keep returning because bladder-focused treatments target where you feel the pain, not what is causing it. The nervous system stays stuck in an alarm state, continuously generating urgency signals regardless of what is done to the bladder.

📱 RESOURCES
Website: https://drsonalbarad.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsonalbarad/
Masterclass: https://drsonalbarad.com/register

🔔 New episodes on IC, bladder pain, and root-cause treatment drop every week. Subscribe so you do not miss what is coming next on this channel.

ABOUT DR. SONAL BARAD
Dr. Sonal Barad is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and board-certified pelvic rehab specialist with 22 years of clinical experience and over 40,000 clinical hours treating bladder pain. She has personally lived with IC, researched it for over two decades, and helped more than 10,000 women reclaim their lives. Her approach looks at the whole system, including the nervous system, gut, hormones, and pelvic floor, rather than treating the bladder in isolation. She is known for helping women find lasting relief after years of dismissal and failed treatments.

#InterstitialCystitis #BladderPain #PelvicFloor #ICTreatment #BladderHealth

🔗 Work With Dr. Sonal: https://drsonalbarad.com/

There is one thing women with IC do every single time a flare hits, and it is making the next one more likely. You run to the bathroom. It feels like the only option, and every doctor you have ever seen told you to do it. But here is what nobody ever explained: every time you run, you are teaching that nervous system to fire the alarm louder.

The flare is not starting in the bladder. It is starting in the nervous system. And the way your body responds in that moment, the breath you hold, the muscles you tense, the panic you move with, is either calming that alarm or turning it up.

In this episode, I'm going to walk you through why that response is wiring the cycle to repeat, and teach you the exact five-step HEART Reset I use with every single patient to interrupt the panic the moment it starts.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 The First Thing You Should Do During a Bladder Flare (It's Not What You Think)
1:03 Why Running to the Bathroom Teaches the Nervous System to Panic Louder
1:34 Why the Bladder Signal Is Wrong More Often Than Not
2:29 Why Holding It Through Clenched Teeth Is Not the Answer Either
4:15 Why IC Flares Start in the Nervous System, Not the Bladder
5:57 How Your Body Posture and Breath Are Escalating Every Flare
7:14 Three Questions to Ask Yourself the Moment a Flare Hits
8:48 The HEART Reset: What to Do Instead of Running
10:41 All Five Steps of the HEART Reset, Step by Step
15:12 How Each Repetition Makes the Panic Pathway Quieter

❓ QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Why does running to the bathroom during a bladder flare make the next one worse?
Running reinforces the nervous system panic loop. Each time you respond to the urgency alarm by sprinting to the bathroom, you are training the brain-bladder signal to fire louder and faster the next time a flare hits.

What is the HEART Reset for IC flares?
The HEART Reset is a five-step physical sequence that interrupts the nervous system panic cycle in real time. It uses body positioning, tissue support, seated grounding, and back-rib diaphragmatic breathing to send the nervous system evidence that the urgency is not a real emergency.

Can you reduce bladder urgency without emptying the bladder?
Yes. Most IC flares are driven by a nervous system stuck on high alert, not a truly full bladder. Calming the nervous system in the moment can reduce urgency without rushing to the bathroom.

📱 RESOURCES
Website: https://drsonalbarad.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsonalbarad/
Masterclass: https://drsonalbarad.com/register

🔔 New episodes on IC, bladder pain, and root-cause treatment drop every week. Subscribe so you do not miss what is coming next on this channel.


ABOUT DR. SONAL BARAD
Dr. Sonal Barad is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and board-certified pelvic rehab specialist with 22 years of clinical experience and over 40,000 clinical hours treating bladder pain. She has personally lived with IC, researched it for over two decades, and helped more than 10,000 women reclaim their lives. Her approach looks at the whole system, including the nervous system, gut, hormones, and pelvic floor, rather than treating the bladder in isolation. She is known for helping women find lasting relief after years of dismissal and failed treatments.

#InterstitialCystitis #BladderPain #PelvicFloor #ICTreatment #BladderHealth