This is going to be long...sorry.
So I went for my yearly urology appt yesterday. I've had all the tests in the past, the CT scans, the urodynamic testing, the cystoscopes, etc. So my history is well documented...I have a neurogenic bladder, and have had "issues" off and on for years.
I've had UTIs pretty frequently of late (which is interesting because last year during this same time frame I was having the same issue...then it disappeared for months.) Anyhoo, he put me on a low dose Rx of antibiotics for a month to see if that solves that problem.
They have you fill out a sheet each time describing your urinary symptoms. Whether you have them all the time, half the time, etc. So I filled mine out. I have issues off and on with most urinary problems associated with ms...but it's so intermittent.
Sometimes I have frequency, sometimes I have urgency, sometimes I can't void properly and have some retention (yesterday in his office my voiding ultrasound was fine), sometimes I have a weak flow, sometimes I start and stop, etc. etc. etc. and those are the kind of symptoms they ask about. But it's so day to day as to what problem I'm having that I just deal with it because if it's here today, it might be gone tomorrow.
So I get a bit of a lecture from the doc about there being meds for the different problems, and am I "willing to live" this way. I'm thinking to cover all the problems I'd be adding more than one additional medication, and I just don't see a need, especially with the transitory nature of the problems. (I do have Flomax on hand, and on days when I'm having more retention than normal, I take one.) So I say, "At this point, yep, I'm fine living this way." And he looks at me like I've got two heads
I figure docs, especially specialist, as so focused on their one area of practice and wanting to make that area "perfect", they don't realize someone like an MS patient is not only dealing with urinary problems, but problems in so many other areas of their body, that they've accepted that they'll never have complete symptom relief. He also made some comment as to the fact that some issues can damage your kidneys and I had just handed him a month's worth of weekly bloodwork I had had done in September (visiting nurses) and my kidney function is perfect...but he didn't even look at that.
My question is, does anyone else have the intermittent problems, that come and go, or when you have a particular urinary symptom is it always there? Do you take more than one med to deal with the problem, i.e. wouldn't a frequency med and a retention med be contraindicated?
So I went for my yearly urology appt yesterday. I've had all the tests in the past, the CT scans, the urodynamic testing, the cystoscopes, etc. So my history is well documented...I have a neurogenic bladder, and have had "issues" off and on for years.
I've had UTIs pretty frequently of late (which is interesting because last year during this same time frame I was having the same issue...then it disappeared for months.) Anyhoo, he put me on a low dose Rx of antibiotics for a month to see if that solves that problem.
They have you fill out a sheet each time describing your urinary symptoms. Whether you have them all the time, half the time, etc. So I filled mine out. I have issues off and on with most urinary problems associated with ms...but it's so intermittent.
Sometimes I have frequency, sometimes I have urgency, sometimes I can't void properly and have some retention (yesterday in his office my voiding ultrasound was fine), sometimes I have a weak flow, sometimes I start and stop, etc. etc. etc. and those are the kind of symptoms they ask about. But it's so day to day as to what problem I'm having that I just deal with it because if it's here today, it might be gone tomorrow.
So I get a bit of a lecture from the doc about there being meds for the different problems, and am I "willing to live" this way. I'm thinking to cover all the problems I'd be adding more than one additional medication, and I just don't see a need, especially with the transitory nature of the problems. (I do have Flomax on hand, and on days when I'm having more retention than normal, I take one.) So I say, "At this point, yep, I'm fine living this way." And he looks at me like I've got two heads
I figure docs, especially specialist, as so focused on their one area of practice and wanting to make that area "perfect", they don't realize someone like an MS patient is not only dealing with urinary problems, but problems in so many other areas of their body, that they've accepted that they'll never have complete symptom relief. He also made some comment as to the fact that some issues can damage your kidneys and I had just handed him a month's worth of weekly bloodwork I had had done in September (visiting nurses) and my kidney function is perfect...but he didn't even look at that.
My question is, does anyone else have the intermittent problems, that come and go, or when you have a particular urinary symptom is it always there? Do you take more than one med to deal with the problem, i.e. wouldn't a frequency med and a retention med be contraindicated?
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