[fatdave]

last week my nurse and i decided to do an experiment, to take my foley catheter out and see if i could urinate, and it WORKED it takes alot of work to completly void my bladder, but it works, i have stress leakage but after 2 full months of being cathed my bladder muscles are weak and my doctor said use the kegel exersizes to help with that. i can feel when my bladder is full but i still have to push pretty hard to void it. this was such a relief after all the infections and problems with the foley. i still have trouble with the bowels. but im working on that. i have gained so much knowledge from my short time here.

[Nick's mum]

That's fantastic Dave, keep up the good work.

[Kwag_Myers]

That IS good news, congratulations.

I’m just curious – how long ago was your injury? I’m at 10 months. I was able to void when I came home from rehab, but after a couple months I lost the ability. Still, I keep trying.

[carole338]

Hi Dave,

I see you are an L5 so removing the catheter should work great. Two months after my injury I was ready to go home from rehab and my doctor said I would have to use the Foley catheter and that I could not urinate on my own. But I felt I had some control over my bladder. I could feel and control my urine flow. A nurse and I did the same experiment. She took out the Foley catheter and I held my urine over night. She was ready in the morning for me and I didn’t have to wait.

I sometimes have accidents and leakage but it’s usually my fault. I wait too long. I am now working on my bowels and it is going great.

Good luck,
Carole

[fatdave]

im two months post injury. the doctors never wanted to try and let me void on my own in rehab, but i have a very good nurse and we talked about it. i'm doing great with the bladder, but the bowels are another thing.

[ruth]

Thats great - I really hated the whole cath thing and I void - I also havent had a UTI since I stopped using a cath.

Bowels will come, watch what you eat and try to get into a routine. It took ages for me to get that sorted.I now have quite a list of foods that will mess things up for me (literally!!!!)

[gsp23]

Thats great news. I too have bladder control, and I use that in a relative term to this crowd as an AB would disagree about using the word "control" lol. Anyways, I can tell when I need to go and I can go, it just takes a long time after I get to the toilet before anything happens and it comes out really slow but I wouldnt give that up for anything! When I go places like a fair and go to the bathroom it takes me a long time in there but most people I go with respect that some things just take longer

Thats great news though, and keep it up. Nurses wanted to cath me but I told them that though it came slow and took a long time, I could do it and I refused to give up that control.