Tumt for BPH . How successful if you have undergone this?

The important thing to have your PVR (post void residual) checked with an ultrasound or with a catheter. PVR is the amount retained in the bladder after you void. If this PVR is more than 250 or 300ml, it can cause a backup to the kidneys if the bladder fills up. Also the more your PVR, the more you will urinate, because you approach the point where your bladder feels full more often. For example, if your bladder feels full at 400 ml, and your PVR is 300 ml, then you will have to void whenever your badder produces an additional 100ml. But if your PVR is 100 ml., then your bladder would have to produce 300ml. for your bladder to fill up to 400ml., and you would void 1/3 as often.  As far as I know, medication that reduces your bladder's urge to urinate, like Vesicare, has no effect on the prostate.

Hi bob120

Thx for your feedback, But as for as I know is that I am still waiting for some test . But at the moment after I have been to the bathroom, it's as if I can feel my bladder filling up as I can start to feel the urge about 10 minutes later.

All this came about while I was in hospital. My intake was an average 1.7ltrs and my output an average 2.45ltrs. Every time I requested a bottle, I had to have two as I would fill one and a three quarters bottles a time and at night I had to have four bottles.

So you see I was holding that much and having to go regularly for as soon as I relieved myself, before I knew it I had to go again. I can't even go out unless I knew the location of the public toilets are in advance.

Hi Mark,

I have had occasions when I have gone every 10 minutes for several hours. The most I've ever gone overnight was 2-3/4 liters. Over time that seemed to quiet down. I was very anxious at the time as once I went every 10 to 15 minutes from 3AM to 8AM. I wonder if anxiety may have influenced it, but I don't really know what causes it. I've also had occasions when anxiety has definitely caused it. About 8 or 9 years years ago I was nervous about doing my taxes and went 5 times in the 40 minutes it took to go over my taxes with my accountant. We would talk for 10 minutes and then I'd have to get up again. I had my TUMT in 2011 and my GL in 2012. For at least 5 or 6 years before my TUMT I was voiding every 40 minutes all day long. I knew where every bathroom in town was.

Hi bob120

You could be right about anxiety, as I am in remission with bladder cancer and a little concerned as to whether it may have affected the prostate. The way the hospital put it, the cancer had gone into the connective tissue and that is subconsciously at the back of my mind, as this is the second time that I have had cancer. The first being mouth cancer.

I got on a train for a 40 minute journey and went to sit in the gangway seat. The Guy by the window said that he would switch seats with me as he had to go to the toilet a lot. He went twice during that short trip. I asked 'Prostate' and he said 'Yes'

I used to go to a barber with prostate trouble and he would go every ten minutes. I presume that was why he was found hanged in his shop one morning.

Hi Derek,

In New York City where I worked, there are no toilets on the Subways or busses. I used to go past the edge of the platform or behind garbage dumptsters regularly. I had an hour and 45 minute commute and would go 2 or 3 times on the way home. Later on, when I drove, I pulled off the road to pee in a cup once or twice on a one hour commute, and empty it on the shoulder of the road.

Hanging oneself is pretty drastic though. The last time I was in hospital for the bladder neck resection, the man next to me was in his 80's and had worn a foley cath for several years. He had just had a Greenlight laser and couldn't pee. He was saying he wished he'd just kept the foley. A less intrusive solution for the barber would have been an external condom type catheter and leg bag. Deep sea divers wear them under their wetsuit as do other workers like transmission line repair men who can't stop what they are doing to get to a bathroom for long shifts.

I bought one but never used it as it only works well while standing. But it would have solved your barber's problems.

We found that the whole of NYC is bad for finding toilets. I once went into City Hall to find one. Nowadays security would not have allowed that. We once went to Coney Island in October and it was mostly closed down although many were people around. Even McDonalds was closed. Eventually we got to Brighton Beach and a cleaner was mopping the entrance to a Russian Night Club so we strode right in.

We could never find a toilet in San Diego. When I said that to someone he said that the city has over 300 parks and every park has one. 

Many American toilets are quite disgusting even in Train and Bus Stations

America does have one source of toilets that we did not used to have here in Public Libraries. Now quite a few have them.

I have peed in public places in America, behind a dumpster in a Miami car park and on a grass verge by a bus stop in Tampa.

The laser is supposed to seal off all the blood vessels making it a 'bloodless' procedure. The hot wire used in TURP should do the same but TURP patients still bleed a lot.

I asked the urology nurse who removed my catheter about this and she said that most of the blood comes from the urethra as it takes quite a beating from the instruments used and ends up like a blood filled sponge. 

Hi peter06554.....it is now 19 days after the TURP and I too am passing blood and other than that I have had no trouble passing urine. Yesterday morning while I was peeing, without warning it all stopped for a few seconds then Bang...out shot a whole lot of blood clots and what looked like pure blood...same thing again last night....it frightened the daylights out of me. It's all good today except for the small amouts of blood I usualy get.

I have a few questions, how long after your Laser treatment did this happen, is it working well now? and did you get any more clots after that ?

Thanks

About 18 months after my GL something burst and I had a serious hematuria from my prostate and bladder neck. I was used to blood that looked like burgundy wine (it doesn't take a lot of blood to turn urine into a dark red), but this was blood that looked like tomato sauce. I collected some in a cup and it coagulated within a minute into a jello like substance. This was "frank" fresh blood. I was in hospital a week and had emetrgency surgery to cauterize the bleeders and resection my bladder neck and remove stones. Over the course of the week I need 8 pints of whole blood. 

Where was the blood actually from and did you get a reason for it?

It must have been a scary experience

18 months! You would think all would of healed by then, were you still getting the burgany wine like urine 18 months after or was this out of the blue? can you remember anything out of the ordinary you were doing at the time like very heavy lifting etc? How long ago was that and has it settled down now?

 

I was warned after PVP and Thulium laser surgery that a bleed often happens out of the blue after six months.

Hi Dave,

I had been cathing about once a month to keep scar tissue from forming. Two days after the cath I had some burgundy colored urine but it happened once and didn't repeat. I had a urologist appointment on Friday and didn't give it much thought. On Thursday night I started hemmoraging. I went to the hospital and they put in a foley cath and it seemed the heavy bleeding had stopped. In the early hours of Friday, the foley stopped up. I removed it and it was filled with clots. I got in the shower and told my wife to call an ambulance. I removed it, cleared the foley and reinserted it about 10 times. By this time I had discarded the tubing and bag. At the hospital they put me on a three way cath to flush me out with saline. By Sunday night I passed out and my Hemoglobin had gone from 15 to 6, so the flushing out with the three way cath was disguising the fact I was bleeding out. They started giving me whole blood and  scheduled me for emergency surgery Monday morning. My urologist cauterized three bleeders on my prostate and bladder neck, cleaned out all the clots which had filled my bladder, crushed and removed bladder stones, and did a resection of my bladder neck. I had gotten 6 pints of whole blood before the surgery and then two more afterward. My urologist said the hematuria could have been caused when a vein was weakened during the GL, and possibly gave out when I cathed. But I researched hematurias online and in about 25% of the cases a cause cannot be found. They see them a lot in hospitals due to men being on blood thinners, but I never was. This all happened last Dec., and I have been OK since. When I came home from the hospital I had a foley in for a few days and they gave me a large plastic syringe the size of a turkey baster, which they had used to clear clots from the foley in the hospital, and which I continued to use for a few days. After about three days I removed the foley and have not seen any blood since. But I also stopped cathing.

Hi Derek,

See the details of the incident and possible cause on my response to Dave below. I have always been able to keep my head in an emergency. Can't say it scared me, but it scared the bejesus out of my wife. When she came home and had to clean up the shower stall and bathroom where I had been clearing and reinserting the foley cath, she said it looked like a murder scene.

Hi Bob, this prostate repair business wether it's GL, TURP or whatever else they do can obviously be a bit of hit and miss.... it would be good to know the success/failure rate but hopefully it's mostly a hit.

You have had your share of trouble but now hopefully your in the clear.

As for me, I just got off the phone to the hospital where I had the TURP done, they said the very bloody substance I passed a few days ago was debris left over from the operation that was being stored in my bladder and good that's it out. This leads me to another question, have you at any time pushed a lot of fluid through your system since your operation?

I had about  twenty 15oz glasses of mid strength beer at a function the night before I blasted out those clots. I'm trying to work out wether in the end that is a good thing or not! The doc did say it was ok to have a few beers and very important to keep irrigating.

As this is only day 20 for me, I'm not counting my chickens just yet.

Hi Dave,

I can't remember ever having drank 10 liters of any liquid in a day. After my surgery I kept track of my output for a couple of weeks, and the most urine I ever passed in 24 hours was a bit over 4 liters. Normally I drink and pass between 2 and 3 liters of liquid a day.

It sounds to me like your incident was a good thing. It also sounds like you are doing very well to be able to store a large enough quantity to generate a very forceful stream. SO all in all I would say it was a good thing.

On another forum I read of one person who was blocked up and had one last try before going off to the ER and said he shot out a piece of tissue the size of the tip of his thumb. During the turp the debris gets washed into the bladder, and I guess some of the larger pieces don't readily come out right away. 

My GL laser used the XPS 180 watt, which vaporizes everything. But I did get quite a few stringy object come out the first couple of months after the GL anyway, so I guess they were some sort of clots mixed with debris that had been gfloating in my bladder.

All in all, it sounds like you are doing very well.

Bob

Hi Bob yes my stream has been excellent from the moment they took the catheter out 2 days after my surgery....couldnt believe what I was seeing! In fact it's the best in memory!

What use to take several minutes now takes several seconds, I just hope it stays that way.

Actually today is the best I've felt since the surgery, maybe it has something to do with my body expelling all that gunk a few days ago...It cant be a good thing with dead debris still in our bladders for extended amounts of time....and how would you know it was there unless we asked to find out?  I think we are not told the whole story and probably with good reason, but when those clots shot out in very dark coloured urine without warning, my mind certainly did start racing.

I hope you stay well.

Dave

Hi dave72557

I have been told that I have an enlarged prostate and been told that I will have to go through some tests to determine the severity. I am also taking Vesicare.

My query is. What are these abbreviated letters (tests) that you are referring to and have I got them to look forward to?

Hi Mark, not sure if you meant to direct that question to me, but only tests I had was an ultasound a blood test and digital.

I was however I have refered to the actual surgery that is GL - green light and Transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) is the surgical removal of all or part of the prostate gland. 

Does that answer your question?

Yes thx, dave72557

In the past I have had a bladder resection as part of the treatment in relation to bladder cancer which I think the enlarged prostate stems from.

But I think that I am right regarding the Vesicare medication, in that it doesn't help regarding the prostate.

As they flush the bladder out after the any of the procedures I am intrigued as to where so much debris could come from. After my GL I had small clots for a few days and one baked bean sized one after a couple of weeks. After my Thulium procedure a few clots but quite a few biggish dead skin looking pieces of debris during the two weeks I had a catheter in. The nurse who took my catheter out had filled my  bladder with saline and asked me to hold it in as long as possble before peeing into a container. What came out was crystal clear with no retention.

That's a good question. There's a lot about the procedure and the bladder and prostate that remain a mystery to me. I passed debris for quite a few months afterward. If you look at the youtube videos, what's left after the laser procedures looks pretty ragged. Then I imagine clots and scabs form, ragged edges break off. Maybe when we sleep the debris migrates upward into the bladder.

Someone  I know who had an early GL was told when he had a later cystoscopy that it looked like a lot of ragged curtains hanging down in there. The GL videos all show the Uro leaving a smooth surface inside.

Can pieces that break off get through the bladders two sphincters ?

Although in retro ejaculation:

" In retrograde ejaculation, the muscle that shuts the bladder does not function normally. This allows all or part of the semen to travel backward (retrograde) into the bladder at the time of ejaculation. When this happens, less semen comes out the tip of the penis."

Derek,

I have no idea. There's very little actual info about the GL posted on the internet. All the medical sources seem to quote the same text and simplified theory of how it should work. I didn't have retro (to my knowledge), but how would I know if I had 10% retro or 25%? Maybe the debris is in the prostatic urethra and breaks off as you urinate. If so, the story about debris in the bladder might not be the whole story. Maybe the big and small debris is in the ragged remains of what was turped, and just breaks off as the urine hits it. Again, good luck in finding an explanation posted. Seems like all the official medical sites stick close to the cookbook party line, and anyone else is just guessing.