Rezum procedure has been a total failure.

Posted , 18 users are following.

Been taking Tamsulosin for 2 years and had no problems sleeping thru the night. Urologist was concerned that my bladder did not fully evacuate leaving 250-300 ml. Recommended the Rezum procedure to alleviate this and allow me to stop the Rx med - - which sounded good since I try to avoid long-term Rx meds whenever possible.

No problem with the procedure except some pain that quickly subsided. Never was told of possible side effects, but Dr. di say they were 70%+ effective. Wore a catheter and bag for the next week. Couldn't urinate by myself. New catheter installed for another week with the same outcome.

They installed a plastic stent and no catheter. Still unable to urinate I went to the emergency room where they installed another catheter and bag. Returned to my original urologist who showed me how to self-catheteritize and asked me to do it at least 3x daily, which I did for 2 months. At no time have I been able to urinate - - not 1 cc. Sex drive is at zero.

At most recent visit to the Rezum doctor, he was disappointed in the results and said it might be due to my larger than average size but healthy prostate 40g.

Now stuck with self-catheterizing 3x a day for who knows how long. He talked about a "Roto-Router" procedure but no way would I follow his recommendation. He billed insurance about $5,000 so he's happy.

1 like, 24 replies

24 Replies

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  • Edited

    If I might inquire, when was the Rezum procedure done and have you sought a second opinion from another Urologist or other Doctor(s) ?

    • Posted

      Early June 2019. Original (referring) urologist said I was the first (and possibly last) patient he referred for this procedure. Sounds like the only options are to wait and see if it improves or have the prostate reamed out.

  • Edited

    What a nightmare! So sorry for your pain and anxiety. I had a rezum back in June and had a catheter for 3 1/2 weeks then began self cathing but now at week 7 post rezum things are flowing. My prostate was 82g and I was given 4 (9 second shots). I'd definitely get another Urologist, even if only for the comfort of another perspective. I wonder if the Uri hit your sphincter muscle by mistake. All the best in sorting this out.

  • Edited

    Beware of procedures that have not stood the test of time. Always get a second or even a third opinion. Do not sign a doctor's or surgeon's waiver of liability.

    • Edited

      I don't know for sure -- but I probably signed a waiver when they gave me a bunch of documents to sign/initial just before the procedure.

  • Posted

    gael27540,

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    Sorry to here that your Rezum was not successful. I had a Rezum done in November 2019 which was successful. Here are a few questions:

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    1. Did you have a urodynamics test before your Rezum and what were your detrusor pressure results?
    2. Did you have a cystoscopy before your Rezum and what did it show about your bladder and blockage?
    3. Did you do a TRUS before your Rezum and what did it show about your prostate?
    4. Did you know how many Rezums your urologist had done before yours and for how long?

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      I will get back to you once you have answered these questions.

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      Steve

    • Posted

      Oops, that should have been " I had a Rezum done in November 2019 which was successful."

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      S

  • Edited

    Gael,

    Did you originally go to one Urologist who recommended another Urologist to do the Rezum ?

    How many Rezum has the Urologist who did the procedure done ? You should find someone who has done at least 50.

    250 - 300ml is high for post void residual, but not uncommon. Many guys on this web site report PVR that high. 40g is not a large prostate, in fact it is small. What test did he do to know the size ?

    From what I have heard the Rezum procedure is more than 70% effective.

    Was the stent they installed a Spanner stent ? From what I know the Spanner should open the bladder neck and prostate, so that you rely on the lower sphincter for control. If you still had problems with a Spanner installed your blockage may be below the prostate.

    The Rezum procedure does have a long recovery but most guys start having some flow after 2 months, for sure by 3 months.

    According to what you have said you had the procedure 2 months ago, wore Foley catheters and a Spanner for at least 3 weeks. But you said you have been self-catheterizing for 2 months. According to what you have said you must have done self cath for 1 month and 1 week. I have been self cathing for 1.5 years now without much problem. Many guys on this web site have been self cathing for a year or longer. One person has been doing it for more than 10 years.

    If you are OK with self cath I would keep doing that for perhaps another month to see if the swelling from Rezum goes down. Then find another Urologist to evaluate your situation. He should be able to tell a good amount using a flexable cystoscope. If you do that tell him you want to watch it on a monitor while he is doing it, and get a video CD of it, and get a written report if possible. Don't let him just walk away without saying anything after all the time and money you spent for it.

    Thomas

  • Posted

    My uro suggested Rezume even though he does not know how big my prostate is. Rezume looks to be good up to 80 cc. Mine is 125 cc. Like like may others have said, do your research regarding BPH surgery.

  • Posted

    Please respond back to me since I am considering the Rezum procedure. I got a message that I had been blocked by mail servers for some reason and have not been receiving messages from this forum.

    • Posted

      Log into your account and check your settings. It has happened to a few of s recently

    • Posted

      I have had the same problem of patient.info emails being blocked server side too. It went on for over a month on 2 separate occasions. I had to contact my email provider to fix this both times. Having my Rezum was less of a hassle then fixing this email problem.

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      S

    • Posted

      Thanks, I thought someone did not like my comments and blocked me.

    • Posted

      Thanks, I thought someone did not like my comments and blocked me.

    • Posted

      Jim,

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      I don't know what your comments were. I can say that some comments may be blocked because of content. If you post a link to a website, it may be blocked. As such, I am not posting the link to the "Terms and Conditions" mentioned below.

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      If you post material that violates the Terms and Conditions such as "any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory" or "sexually explicit material" and such, then it may be blocked. I have seen the 1st happen, but when discussing prostate issues, I have never seen the 2nd happen.

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      When I was not receiving emails from patient.info, I had to work with patient.info's tech support and along with my email provider's tech support we eventually fixed the problem. I found patient.info's tech support to be responsive.

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      Steve

    • Posted

      Thanks, I agree with what you said and I have been careful and not even mentioning my Urologist name. My comments are still there, I just got blocked for some reason.

      I figured maybe some doctors do not like to see that some of their prostate TURP like procedures do not work for some patients and maybe can block comments; however, I would not think whoever controls this site would allow that.

      I have even seen doctors web sites that only shows 5 star and positive comment reviews when I know there are some negative reviews.

      What I really hate is when some doctors do not tell you about their failures and all the side effects with a procedure. That is why I like this community forum where patients can be open about their good and bad experiences.

    • Posted

      Jim,

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      Just to clarify, if your messages are being blocked, for example when someone else posts a comment on a patient.info forum and you do not get a notification mail, then that is something to work with the tech support for your email provider and the tech support for patient.info.

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      If you posts are being moderated, then their contents will not show up on a forum and instead of your contents will be a message about your post being reviewed by the moderator. After the moderator has reviewed your post, then it may or may not be posted.

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      Procedures are criticized on these forums all the time. I have certainly criticized TURP. These forums have their good points and bad points. There are some poster who have an ax to grind with their (former) urologist and their procedure. I tend to ignore these posts.

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      As Ken on these forums and I say, it is important for all men to carefully research the various BPH procedures and urologists before they chose a procedure and urologist and if they don't like what they, see, then they should move on to another.

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      Steve

    • Posted

      Jim,

      I stopped receiving emails from this forum for a couple months last year. I got in touch with someone from Technical support, I think her name was Caroline. She said sometimes people send a Patient email to their spam folder, probably inadvertently. When that happens, even just once, Patient stops sending any more emails. She c;eared it up for me and I started getting emails again.

      Thomas

    • Posted

      Jim,

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      My email provide described what Tom wrote above as a"block feedback loop". If you or your email provider marks a patient.info email has spam, then a message is sent from your email provider's email server to patient.info's email server that patient.info email is being marked as spam, and then patient.info stops sending anymore emails to you.

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      This was a major PITA for me to fix. As I said, getting my Rezum done was less of a hassle.

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      Steve

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