Cystoscopy this afternoon - what to expect?

[VivaLeBeaver]

Do I keep my own top on or do they put me in a hospital gown?

Is it in a proper operating theatre?

How much does it hurt?

Its a flexible one with local anasthetic by the way.

Viva is that the procedure to look into your bladder?

Yes.

OK, well I had that and the local anasthetic is put around the entrance to your urethra (sp?) and on the flexible probe. However, I will warn you that it was "stingy" but very interesting once the probe was in place as my consultant talked me through what he was seeing on the screen!
I had it done because I was having repeated UTIs and I was given a course of AntiBs to take immediately in case the procedure started anything up.

Hope it all goes well and come back and let us know!

Thanks for that gailforce. It wasn't too bad but I one point I did yell ouch as I got a big stabbing pain. Think he ,ust have hit the top of my bladder or something. But wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Bladder looks normal as well so back to square one for trying to find a reason for my Utis.

Hi Viva, glad that it went better than you anticipated ane that nothing sinister was found. You sound like me though, at that stage, no further forward with the cause of the constant UTIs.

The urologist then had, what turned out to be, a brilliant idea! I took back to back courses of three different Antibiotics over a nine month period. Finished last Jan and have only had one UTI since (fingers crossed as I try to type this!). My neighbour also had recurrent UTIs and she is still on her course of treatment and has not had one episode since starting.

Dont know if this is worth mentioning to your consultant? We were and are very strict about taking a good quality probiotic alongside them though to help any gut issues.

Hope you are having a relaxing evening and not feeling sore.

Viva I had a cystoscopy in May 10, which found nothing other than a slightly narrowed urethra, which they didn't think was the cause of my UTI's. I had it dilated anyway. Following this I had 2 further UTI's, which were nowhere near as bad as the ones I was used to. Since then I have had a year free with no UTI's! I would get them constantly prior to this. I might go a month or even 3 without, but then would get them over and over for a few weeks til they settled down.

Did they dilate your urethra? Am I right in thinking you are a midwife? I am also, and although I got my first UTI at aged 14, they definately ramped up a lot once I was training/qualified. I blame work for having no time to pee, and not allowing drinks on the ward!!!!

I am glad it went well, mine was quite painful because my bladder was showing signs of irritation at the time and there was not really any local anaesthetic except on the cystoscope. I have similar symptoms to you and have been having particularly bad recurrent infections for the past four months, I feel so shite and on my own with it, it's nice to see that I am not alone, although of course not nice to see others going through similar.

Gailforce, I asked my gp to start me on trimethropin a couple of months ago and since starting that I've been ok apart from for a week in august when I forgot to take the tablets for a few days and all the symptoms came back. He didn't say how long I'd be taking them for and I'm just scared when he says it's time to stop it'll all start again. He didn't say anything about other antibiotics either.

Detective, yes I am a midwife. Have been for six years now though and it's only in the last year that I've had problems. Agree though that the lack of drinks and wee breaks can't be helping. Though oddly enough the urologist said that when I feel I need a wee to try and ignore the feeling for as long as I can. I would have thought that would make things worse.! I have no problem holding it though, I can not wee from 6am to 3pm!! I am trying to drink more water and go to the loo at least once a shift.

Grownup, sorry you're having this as well. What have the drs said to you about what they can do for you?

Thats strange! Wonder if that is new advice? :/ I used to do long days, and it wasn't unheard of for me to go from 6am til 11pm or later without weeing. To be fair though, I wasn't exactly drinking much in the day to actually wee though!
Do you wake in the night for a wee? I don't. I wake often with a real bursting need to go, and am quite sure there is waaaaaaay over 1 litre in there. One day I will buy a jug and measure it. I just know its an abnormal amount to pass. My DF also is shocked at how much my bladder holds, and how long it takes on that first pee of the day! Even my mum reminds me that when I was younger, she would refer to me as a camel for my abnormal amounts of time I would go between going to the loo. I wonder if this is the reason why it all began...
Now I make myself go at least once during a shift, and definitely drink more. All seems much better since the cystoscopy and going loo/drinking more.

I've had a fair number of tests looking for reflux and checking for deformities, but all I really got was that one of my kidneys is smaller and that I have grit and a stone in my non-painful kidney.

Doctor gives me pain relief as I ask for it, I go in whenever I have an infection and make sure I send off a sample immediately, and I have also been on a ten day course for thrush as it can lead to a bad infection and with all the different antibiotics I have been taking recently I keep getting thrush too.

I got signed off in June from the consultant because I missed an x-ray, this was whilst I was in the midst of a kidney infection which left me in bed for weeks and on intravenous antibiotics. I was too ill to even know I had an appointment. So now have another IVU next week and back to the consultant in October to get some answers because my life isn't great at the moment, I am constantly ill, and struggling now with chronic fatigue due to being ill all the time.

It really sucks, hope you get somewhere with your consultant.

I dont know if this will help any of you but have you tried Waterfall D-Mannose?
Excellent web site www.sweetcures.com for full details and I have found it helpful esp if you have episodes after having sex. They recommend that you do not drink cranberry or orange juice (too acid I suppose) and I find that I cannot drink white wine but, thank God, I can drink red!

Viva I am going to see if I have any record of the ABs I took. By the way, GP was reluctant to prescribe in this way it was the urologists idea and I am very grateful! I make sure that I drink 2 litres of water throughout the day. I drink one pint (warm) first thing in the morning while I get showered/dressed to get me off to a good start.

I've stopped drinking all alcohol, avoid acidic stuff such as juice. I only have one cup of coffee a day and then it's herbal tea. I do have a can of diet coke when I'm at work which I can't stop! It's my mid shift pick up.
I did try that waterfall stuff and it didn't help.

I've had ultrasounds which were all fine but someone told me to ask for a ct scan as that can show stuff up.

I think the reason the urologist told me to put off going to the loo is because he thinks I have an overactive bladder. However he never bothered asking how many times a day I go to the loo so not sure how he came to that conclusion and I'm sure he is wrong. I thought he was shit and the nurse today said he was the worst consultant and advised me to change so I'm going to.

I don't normally wake in the night for a wee, maybe once a week max.

However I can sometimes struggle to get to sleep as it feels like I need to go even though I know I can't as I've just been twenty minutes previously. I just get a lot of bladder discomfort and tenderness whichi think my brain interprets as needing the loo.

i had three months on each of the following:-
Trimepthoprim
Natrofunatoin
Cefalexin

Have you had the scan to determine if you empty your bladder completely? I understand that if you do not empty completely then this can cause problems.

Viva did you have any choice of which consultant you saw? ~I was lucky and asked around HCP colleagues who was the best and saw him!

Yes, I've had the bladder emptying scan which was normal.

I just went with whichever urologist I got put under.

Hi, did you find out what it was, did you recover, if so, what was the treatment? Thanks