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Abdominal pain
Anybody here an indwelling urinary catheter?....
My "Foley" catherter is exchanged each month by myself, which the VA allows (I'm an Air Force veteran).
I flush it daily with a saline solution. If not flushed routinely, it plugs within a couple weeks.
My problem...
I'm awakened each night by lower abdominal pain after sleeping only 4 or 5 hours. I'd put pain level at about 5 on a scale of 1-10.
It's only a problem at night. Once I'm up and moving around the pain disappears, or falls to less than level 1 within 5 or 10 minutes.
However, any time I push against my lower abdomen it's quite painful... about level 5.
In the past six months, the VA has scanned with ultrasound, Xrays, MRI, and recently "CT of the abdomen and pelvis with intravenous constrast."
The results of this latest test being that my liver, kisneys, prostate, and intestines are functioning normally.
Seems to me that rules out everything else but my bladder as the pain source.
The CT exam mentions "The bladder wall demonstrates diffuse bladder wall thickening and prominence of the superficial vascular structures sugesting inflammation."
The "...suggesting inflammation." part leads me to think that is the most likely source of pain. Perhaps there's an infection.
If so, what can be done?
Doctors at the VA hospital in Madison, Wisconsin seem to be baffled by the source... weird!
Anybody here also having a similar problem?
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Pancreas??
Thanks for your comment.
The report notes:
Adrenal glands: Normal.
Pancreas: Normal.
Spleen: Normal.
A couple days ago the Madison VA sent a bottle of 30 tablets of "Oxybutynin Chloride" with instructions:
"Take one tablet by mouth at bedtime as needed for overactive bladder."
This is the first time "Overactive bladder" has been mentioned. They're constantly encouraging me to drink lots of water. I'll get back with this on Monday to hear what the story is in that regard.
So far the tablets seem to be of little help. Perhaps they become more effective after a few more days.
The strangest part of all this is why the worst pain by far is only after I've been laying down for at least a few hours.
I’m by no means a doctor and won’t even try to sit at that table but I read in a thesis that sometimes with certain diseases often related abdominal pain due to the issue at hand and years later find out they developed a problem with their diaphragm. Just a thought, something to think about.
Thanks for your reply....
I just did a little Googling, and apparently the diaphragm can cause abdominal pain.
Interestingly, each time I go to the local VA clinic they ask if I'm having breathing problems... which I'm not. Wonder if they suspect a diaphragm issue?
This is a weird problem. I have "Long Term Covid," and tons of weird things are happening, most of which are just annoyances.
I didn't even suspect I had Covid. The symptoms were mild, and still are. Loss of taste and smell, light fatigue.
Covid was discovered about 1-1/2 years ago, shortly after a routine hearing check.
It's a weird disease, but I don't think my abdominal pain is related to it.
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1 ReactionI heard that long-term call here can produce other situations medically. Which is exactly what Covid was designed to do really because of the mutations it was designed to rather when it introduced to a persons, body and nose to assess and find the weakness in a persons body, and then mutate accordingly and attack it, I’m sorry that you’re going through this my mother had cut gotten Covid and she has respiratory problems and it immediately went right to her respiratory lungs, and
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1 ReactionIt wasn't until a few months ago that a VA doctor admitted to me that they were baffled by many of the affects of Covid.
Until then they just shrugged their shoulders.
Here's something weird about loss of taste.
My wife was drinking a glass of root beer, and I took a sip. It both tasted and smelled like root beer!
I was hoping that might be a sign that I was recovering, but it was not to be.
Just out of curiosity, I'll have to see if root beer still does the same. A different brand of root beer might not, depending on it's chemical makeup.
I was recently admitted to the hospital twice due to a Nasty antibiotic resistant Bladder infection called an ESBL that developed from long term Foley Catheter use. I needed IV antibiotic treatment for 18 days the first time, then when I left the hospital it returned 4 days later and I needed to go back for 12 days of IV Meropenum.
My Infectious Disease Specialist said that probably caused Cystitis which is the thickening of my bladder walls which causes the bladder to lose its elasticity.
I have a similar problem, and a Foley catheter...
Abdominal pain, but the VA doctors don't seem to be able to isolate the cause.
However, the results of a recent scan indicate "...thickening of the bladder wall and indication of inflammation."
No mention of infection, just "inflammation."
Now for the scary part....
During another recent visit the doctor mentioned, in regard to bladder infections, that antibiotics eventually lose their affect, and infections can be fatal.
I feel certain that my abdominal pain is due to a bladder infection. I need to get a straight answer from the VA, along with what their intentions are.