3 replies to this topic

[sbrown955]

My 16y/o daughter was injured 02/07, and is now a complete T9. She got out of Shriners in May, and for the first few months, we had no problems at all with urine leakage. She cath'ed five times a day, at 5am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, and 10pm. Several months ago, she started having problems with leakage. She would leak upon getting into position to cath, or spurt urine when the cath tip touched her, or leak around the catheter, and sometimes just spontaneously leaking between caths, which we are now doing every four hours around the clock. her volumes are not high--between 100cc's and 250cc's. Her doctors (pediatrician, physical medicine, and urologist) do not want to do any intervention with medicine until she passes her one-year anniversary. We read an article in her New Mobility magazine (wonderful magazine, by the way) where a man wrote that he started leaking after stopping his calcium/magnesium supplements, and the leaking stopped after resuming taking the magnesium. My daughter is lactose intolerant, and so does not get much dairy. Does anyone out there have suggestions for us as to things we can do to get this under control? Any meds or interventions we should ask her doctors about? All suggestions appreciated, and yes, we will run everything by her doctor first.

[Eric]

sbrown955, on Dec 16 2007, 04:41 PM, said:

My 16y/o daughter was injured 02/07, and is now a complete T9. She got out of Shriners in May, and for the first few months, we had no problems at all with urine leakage. She cath'ed five times a day, at 5am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, and 10pm. Several months ago, she started having problems with leakage. She would leak upon getting into position to cath, or spurt urine when the cath tip touched her, or leak around the catheter, and sometimes just spontaneously leaking between caths, which we are now doing every four hours around the clock. her volumes are not high--between 100cc's and 250cc's. Her doctors (pediatrician, physical medicine, and urologist) do not want to do any intervention with medicine until she passes her one-year anniversary. We read an article in her New Mobility magazine (wonderful magazine, by the way) where a man wrote that he started leaking after stopping his calcium/magnesium supplements, and the leaking stopped after resuming taking the magnesium. My daughter is lactose intolerant, and so does not get much dairy. Does anyone out there have suggestions for us as to things we can do to get this under control? Any meds or interventions we should ask her doctors about? All suggestions appreciated, and yes, we will run everything by her doctor first.

I'm not sure why your Dr. want to wait a full year? I have been using Ditropan to control leakage well before my one year anniversary and I'm also on Imipramine for control as well.Ask the doc's about those and may also need a larger cath if there is regular leakage around the cath. and, definitely talk to the doc's before using ANY supplements.

[hockeydahc]

could just be a small, infection. not full blown or anyhting, but a disturbance in the bladder causes it to spasm to clear whatever may not belong. drink more water to flush. sounds backwards to drink more when leaking occurs, I know.

[hanguk]

Hi I'm 42 and a T11 (female) paraplegic for 20 years. I have had leakage problems too. In fact my bladder became so contracted that a year after injury it had a 50-cc capacity and I had to wear a Foley. I had an operation in 1989 to augment my bladder with a piece of small intestine. After that I could rid of the Foley and use the toilet every 4 hours or so with short, flexible but not floppy catheters (not the way they taught me in rehab, which was using a long red rubber catheter and getting on the bed, using a mirror to see what I was doing, very very difficult to get the catheter in the right place, and extremely frustrating). What kind of catheter does your daughter use? Her current problem may just be an infection or maybe she needs incontinence medicine like Ditropan. Despite the operation I did not have perfect continence, especially at night. I took medicine for the incontinence off and on. In the last couple of years I found that catheterizing every 3 hours and getting up once in the night took care of most of the incontinence. However, that's a lot of catheterizing and I had trouble sleeping because I knew I'd have to get up and go to the bathroom. Recently I started seeing a spinal cord specialist for the first time in years. They bumped up the dose of my Ditropan. It gives my a dry mouth but I can cath every 4 hours now, and usually don't get up at night but I only have time to sleep about 6 hours a night anyway. I haven't had too much of a problem with infection except during pregnancy. I sometimes wear a protective pad if I'm going to be in a situation where I might not be able to use a bathroom but almost never a diaper. I don't want to to have to do that. Sometimes I even wear things that have to be dry cleaned. Some things that increase incontinence are infection and being cold - have you noticed that? If I go out in cold weather or my bedroom is cold the bladder works overtime and I have to pee more. Good luck to you and your daughter! I don't think there's really a perfect solution, but can minimize the incontinence in order to live a more normal life.