Scheduled for prostate removal next week urine test: Staphylococcus

I saw the surgeon and he spent a fair amount of time with me. He said 2,000 CFU/ml is minimal as far as staph. He said that's 2% of what you typically see in a full blown UTI, it would read 100,000 CFU's. To be on the safe side he said lets go in with a Cystoscopy scope and have a look around. I've never been catherized while awake, it wasn't terrible but very uncomfortable. Once in the first thing he found was a Urethra stone attached near the prostate so he removed that. Once he got into the bladder there was no scarring, cyst or polyps and urine was clear. He took a urine sample directly from the bladder and they're going to culture that. He said you can get 2,000 CFU's just from the opening the urine specimen jar out of the air, my son backed that up, son has a pre-med and biology degree. He ended up recalling the prescription of Nitrofurantoin monohydrate/macrocrystals antibiotic and put me on Cipro. He said he could not see a single reason to not go through with the surgery Monday unless the culture comes back a lot worse than what he thinks it's going to be.

Absolutely - could even be bacteria near the opening of the penis - not the urine.
You should always begin your stream for a few seconds and then stop it; this flushes away any stray surface bacteria. Only then should you urinate into the specimen vial. This is a ‘clean catch’ method that no one tells the patients any more…
Phil

I've never been told that. Thanks will do from now on.

@im62at2024, any update? Has the infection been cleared for surgery? How are you doing?

You probably saw that the surgeon wanted to see me a week before the surgery. The urine sample he took directly from my bladder was totally clear. I had my surgery was this past Monday afternoon, 3 hours and 15 minutes on the OR table, he removed the prostate and two lymph nodes but was not able to save the nerves but otherwise it went like he expected. I spent one night in the hospital. Lots of extreme soreness and some bruising around my 5 incisions. Soreness is starting to let up. I'm doing ok but had a small setback yesterday and ended up in the ER for about 5 hours. I had just finished my morning cereal and it was like someone started beating me up in my lower back and nothing would stop it. My wife called and they said take me the ER. By the time I got there I didn’t have a dry thread of clothes. She thought it had to be a kidney stone. I had sweat dripping out of my hair and doubled over in pain. ER doc thought it might be internal bleeding. They did a CT with contrast no kidney stones, no gall bladder problems and thank God no internal bleeding. He said he felt like it was caused by two nerves that runs down your lower back into your pelvic area and during the surgery they rearranged so much down there and it’s trying to find its way back into place. He said they really have to do a lot of work in there to get that thing out and it’s going to take a good while to get over this. He was very thorough and seemed like a really good Dr. He was in touch with my surgeon via phone. They gave me hydromorphone for pain, nausea medicine and fluids in a IV. I’ve never had a kidney stone but my wife has and she said it sure looked like that was what going on. They prescribed me some muscle relaxers and prescription strength Motrin. I thought everyone there was great. Nothing happens fast in ER but I thought they did a great job. I'm having fairly normal bowel movements and passing urine quite well. Having some issues with the stick on catheter tube positioner on my leg. Had to order another one this afternoon from Amazon and it will be here this evening. My follow up comes this coming Thursday. If I have little to no leakage I'll be a happy guy but everyone says to except some leakage for a while. After that I guess lots PSA tests will begin. I'm spending a somewhat fair amount of time by myself as we live on a full-time farm so I'm using an old walker to get around the house, definitely don't want to fall. I also have Meniere's Disease and two spine fusions so those are always an issue. Thank you so much for checking in on me.