Liane

Hi, James. Boy, does this ever sound familiar! My husband had his radical prostatectomy a year ago, age 53, and had the catheter in for 3 weeks as per his doctor's standard procedure. We were in the emergency room 5 times over the next 3 weeks for "urinary retention". (his first shutdown was on the first day after removal, like yourself). At this time the urologist wanted him to self-catheterize, but it had been so painful for the 3 weeks that he couldn't even imagine doing it, and I sure as heck wasn't going to volunteer! Anyway, in retrospect, it appears he had a reaction to the latex catheter which caused irritation and scar tissue. Several months after things had calmed down, and several cystoscopies later, a procedure was done to clear away the scar tissue, and this time a silastic non latex catheter was used for 10 days, and there was no pain whatsoever, he could go to work and everything without any problem. (We did go back to the duckie mattress pad) But to keep the urethra open, he had to self catheterize frequently, and still does. At first it was a couple of times a day, then once a day, then once every couple days etc and now it is about once every ten days. It is not hard to do, the difficult part seemed to be learning how far to insert it. It was a bit uncomfortable at first, but certainly not as bad as the initial catheter where he couldn't even stand up for the 3 weeks it was in. He uses KY jelly, and keeping it clean is the key. He had one kidney infection, almost certainly caused by the catheter, and will have to continue the procedure at least for a year, but is managing. The doctor had never had a case like this in his many years as a well-respected prostate surgeon, and now uses only the non latex kind of catheters based on this one case. I have gone on a bit, but did want you to know that as dreadful as it sounds, the procedure is manageable. Please keep us informed, and hopefully it is just a bladder spasm. All the best.