Urine Retention after surgery

[nuguy2]

Did you have a problem with urine retention following surgery (after the Foley was removed)? Did you doctor have you do self catheterization? How frequently were you told to catheterize yourself?

[Dave92014]

I had abdominal prostate surgery for BPH 9 years ago that removed 80% of my prostate so my flow was good before my implant surgery. My doc removed my catheter the morning after surgery. The flow was difficult for the first 4 or 5 days after surgery. My doc had wrapped my penis to reduce swelling but I thought that was squeezing the urethera and causing flow problems so with his okay I removed the wrapping two days after surgery. I still had problems with the flow and difficulty aiming it so I peed into a shower for the first few days because of the aiming problems. My doc had a rule of not using ibuprofen or other nasids after the surgery. Since ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory I wanted to use it to get the swelling down to help the flow problem. He looked at my situation 5 days after surgery and okayed ibuprofen. From that point the flow problem and pointing problem decreased rapidly. I don't know if the decrease was because of the ibuprofen or just time allowing healing.

So for me the flow problems were a significant nuisance but cleared up after 5 to 7 days.

Hang in there, it will get better.

Dave