good day to all you wonderful ladies I hope the sun is shining on you all
My question is I have been having ureteric stents for the past 5yrs two weeks ago I had my stent changed to a Memokath stent (metal) others were plastic the metal stent lasts up to 10yrs where as the plastic need changing every 6thsmonths so a no brainier since the stent change i cannot pee with out a catheter I have been back to hospital they say the stent is fine also the kidney so they will take catheter out in two weeks and see if I can pee naturally if I cannot then catheter back and I will have to learn how to change catheter myself which I am very nervous about having to do
I would appreciate any feed back and other ladies experience in this area
Many thanks Val x
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1946val
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I am a fellow OC person but I was previously a community nurse and had lots of experience with people living with catheters.
Ask to be referred to your local district nurses for support with the catheter. Also ask if you can have a catheter valve (a Flip-Flo) fitted to the catheter which will allow you to drain it intermittently. This should increase the likelihood of you being able to pee after the catheter is removed, as your bladder will fill up and empty as in normal circumstances. The nurses will teach you how to manage the drainage.
If you do need a permanent catheter, you might manage the drainage equipment changes yourself, but usually the catheter changes are done by a nurse. You should get support from a district nurse to learn how to look after your catheter. Lots of people do live with permanent catheters and there’s a variety of equipment choices to help with lifestyle issues.
Slightly different but after aech of my operations i go into urinary retention and keep having to have the catheter put back in. So the nurses taught me to self catheterise which is actually really easy. You use disposable catheters. I dont know if this is available long term but at least it means between wees you can forget about it.
many thanks.Betty for your reply did not even know about disposable catheter I will investigate thank you how long after surgery did you need the catheter in mine at the moment is 3 weeks
Many thanks for all your advise hope you are well Val x
about 3-4 weeks each time it just happens to me after surgery dont know why lol, i am completely normal between. I had to keep having bladder scan for a few days to make sure you are doing it correctly but once i passed they let me free, it was much better than carrying my catheter round in a carrier bag after the first surgery 😂
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