If you're anything like me, you've spent a lot of time doing your best to hide your problematic peeing and the pain you suffer. It's too embarrassing to talk about. People would just laugh at you to your face or behind your back. Perhaps you still don't even know what's actually causing your condition. All you know it's to do with your bladder.
With a number of possible medical issues having similar symptoms to yours you are unlikely to be able to self diagnose accurately. You will need a medical consultation.
I spent more than 15 years clueless to the fact that my bladder wasn't even the problem. I couldn't pee properly (I called that 'peelessness') so naturally I thought the issue was with my bladder because that's where pee comes from - right? ... WRONG, SO STUPIDLY COCKING WRONG!!
Here's a brief outline of the various symptoms of 'peelessness'. I wish I'd known them from the very beginning of my journey:
The inability to pee properly is called 'urinary retention'. Urinary retention is a condition that relates to a number of health problems including:
OVERACTIVITY OF THE DETRUSORY MUSCLES (WEAKENED BLADDED MUSCLES)
Regardless of what the cause is, urinary retention can be excruciatingly painful in its own right.
The symptoms are:
* the inability to pee/ empty your bladder ✅
* pain/ swelling in lower abdomen
* urgent need to pee ✅ ❌
With chronic (ongoing) urinary retention additional symptoms can be:
* frequent urination in small amounts ✅ ❌
* difficulty starting the flow - called 'hesitancy' ✅
* a slow/ weak stream of urine ✅
* urgent need to pee, but with little or no success ✅
* still feeling the need to pee even after you've peed ✅
* uncontrollable leaking ❌
Before my prostateoperation (TURP) my condition matched the ✅ Afterwards the conditions marked with an ❌ still exist. In addition I am still unable to empty my bladder in one go so the operation wasn't a complete success in curing my problems. With a consultation yet to take place with my surgeon I don't know what the next step is.
***For assessment of the symptoms you are experiencing and diagnosis of their cause you will need to be examined by a doctor and you should arrange that as soon as possible.***
Several weeks after my prostate operation it looks like my issues were not related to my bladder so I will not address anything to do with the bladder. I only had BENIGN PROSTATE ENLARGEMENT. My urethra was blocked so I couldn't pee.
How 'benign prostate enlargement' (BPE) causes pain:
The bladder is essentially a hollow muscle-bound organ, a sack in which excess urine from your kidneys is stored prior to it being ejected from the body through your penis. Once it's full it needs to be emptied to make way for the regular flow from the kidneys.
From the bladder the stored urine passes down the narrow urethra tube to the head of the penis and out of the body. Between the penis and the bladder is the prostate. It wraps around the urethra. In older males this gets larger with age. As it does so it can start to put pressure on the urethra thus narrowing the opening and restricting the passage of urine along it. That means your bladder has difficulty emptying. The bladder muscles contract but little urine passes out so they stay contracted, still trying to do their job. This is where the pain comes from. You'd think the damn pee woud just drop out with gravity but obviously God had other thoughts that Friday 6000 years ago!
My pee problem grew gradually between 2008 and 2020. During that time my ability to pass urine steadily but imperceptibly reduced and the pain of doing so increased. I'd been going to my doctor about it for years, but he'd just do tests for urinary tract infections and give me the all clear saying "It's just one of those things that happens when you get older". I started referring to my condition as 'old man's bladder' - not an attractive label but it seemed perfectly fitting and I adopted it to use when necessary in my interactions with people who remarked on the frequency with which I was going for a pee. That made me feel much older than my 53 years.
For a long time neither I or my doctor knew that my bladder wasn't even the problem. I had lack of medical training as an excuse - he didn't and I still don't understand why he failed me so badly on this, losing me years during which I could have been receiving treatment and living a relatively pain free life.
He did finally refer me to a specialist in 2019 and I was put on the end of a waiting list that, little did I know, was going to be four and a half years long. During that time I found out a lot about pain.
No comments:
Post a Comment