Health check: bladder symptoms

If you feel that your bladder is not emptying fully and also suffer from pain when you urinate – and possibly blood in the urine – then the most likely cause is an infected kidney or kidney stones, both of which are treatable.

More rarely, this sensation is a symptom of multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s. Multiple sclerosis is caused by a loss of the insulating sheath that covers nerves. This coating, called myelin, helps the nerves conduct messages from the brain, and some of the first nerves to lose their insulation are those around the bladder, explains Chris Ogden, a urologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London and Bupa Cromwell.

“These patients are still releasing a normal and healthy amount of urine – it’s just that they don’t feel like they are,” he says.

In the case of Parkinson’s, the symptom occurs as a result of the loss of chemical messengers that are vital for transferring signals between nerves.