Paul, your last statement is so right. I too am in UK and read many sites. Seems to see mostly patients who had bad experience, which made me aprehensive. Eventually found the BAUS site ( British Association of Urology Surgeons). The site is full of approved procedures, risks, advantages etc.
I was admitted to hospital in August 2023 due to water retention which was impacting kidney function. The Uros at the main hospital did not know about Aquablation and were persuading me strongly towards TURP. I had investigated TURP and although it seemed the standard op, does comes with after effects I was not prepared to accept. After much research, I found Urologists in the UK, who are experienced with this relatively new technique. Aquablation is NICE approved. The Uro’s in UK who do the procedure are few and far between, usually based in and around major cities. That said I found a very good Urologist 250 miles from my home. I was offered a consultation in September. The Uro was thorough, mapping my prostate at the same time. I was shown in real time on the Uros scanning screen the shape, size etc of my prostate, which showed lobes within the bladder neck. Had the Op on 9th October, had been offered and earlier appt, but logistically was not possible.
The op went fine, apart from being wheeled into the pre-op theatre, I knew absolutely nothing about the surgery until back on ward just over an hour later. No pain, just catheter and solution flushing my bladder. The flushing was done for just over 24 hours when all traces of blood had disappeared.
The TWOC was more difficult. I had catheter in for 3-4 weeks. Uro said having had a catheter in for almost 2 moths before the Op had made my bladder lazy.
All is now well and functioning properly including ejaculation.
We are all different, physiologically. I am not overweight ( BMI 23.7) and fit, have allowed time for the healing etc to complete, have not pushed myself. Have seen others who start stenuous excercise too soon and then have problems.
I had this procedure done on 1/4/24 and the first 3 days were absolute hell due to poor pain control. I was in the hospital the first night and at the mercy the hospitalist who knew little about this procedure. I had lots of bleeding so the Urologist applied a pulling pressure with the catheter to reduce bleeding around it. I’d die before I‘d have it done again without heavy sedation for the first 3 days which was the length of time the catheter stayed in. Once the catheter was removed the pain became bearable but after 30 days I’m still not back to normal physically. My Hgb dropped from 12.6 to 11.4 from blood loss and it takes time to build blood back up. My doctor said no sex for at least 4 weeks but I’m not ready yet although I’m interested. Thankfully I am able to urinate like a teenager. Today is the first day the tip of my penis doesn’t hurt at the end of peeing.My doctor said he didn’t know what was causing that.
heres my long and convoluted story. I am 72 and in reasonably good shape. I was shooting out bladder stones shortly after starting working out on a recumbent bike. it didnt hurt . i finally saw a urologist. sent me for xray and ct scan. many stones and also a suspicious lesion which turned out to be bladder cancer. it was very low grade and non evasive. surgery on oct 19 2022. went home with a catheter. catheter out 5 days later. developed a UTI. it was the weekend so had to go to a doc in the box where they confirmed a UTI. they did a culture which wouldnt be available for a few days. gave me antibiotics , but they were the wrong type for what i had. the infection got much worse. went to the ER because of 102 fever and i could not pee AT ALL. got there just in time. i had sepsis . they put a catheter back in. i was admitted for 5 days. on super IV antibiotics, and also for 2 weeks after discharge. my urologist put me on flomax and took out the catheter after 6 days and sent me home. i couldnt pee at all. catheter back in. he referred me to a surgeon at NYU in manhattan. he recomended aquablation . he thought i had underlying prostate issues before any of this happened based on what i told him. procedure was scheduled for a week later on dec 29 2022. still on flomax to help urinate. dr told me i was 60 percent blocked and prostate was 66 grams. stayed overnight in the hospital. they took the catheter out the next morning. i was peeing a little but not enough. catheter back in. follow up a week later. all this time on flomax. the nurse took the catheter out and filled my bladder with saline. i then peed it out no problem. i was happy. the dr called a few days later to check on me. he said to stop the flomax. however my urologist said to take the flomax. iam so paranoid that i wont be able to pee without it, so i started to take it every other day. i just started doing this this week and dont notice any decrease in urination. im planning to stop it altogether very slowly. after all , the blockage is clear now so it should be ok. fingers crossed.
Je cherchais simplement des informations sur cette procédure. Je l’ai subie en juillet 2025 et à ce jour, je ne prends plus aucun médicament pour l’hypertrophie de la prostate. Ma préoccupation maintenant, c’est qu’en octobre, mon flux urinaire est minimal et parfois j’ai encore une envie urgente d’aller aux toilettes. Je n’ai vraiment aucun contrôle sur ce que je pensais avoir. Est-ce encore partie du processus de guérison ? Merci.
This forum has been very helpful. Unfortunately for me having aquablation surgery yesterday my experience has been very painful and very large amounts of blood and clots. Today I went to the urologists office to try to flush out the clots in the catheter since I wasn’t draining. Just a heads up the catheter is much larger than the regular one in order to remove clots and debris. Tomorrow I have the catheter removed. I’ve had one for 3months waiting to get in with a urologist and now not sure if it is going to work with obstruction gone. If I can’t urinate I’m screwed. It’s back to the catheter. Anyway just be warned this is no cakewalk. It could be much worse for you than others describe. Pain is almost unbearable. Tylenol barely helps. Will continue after tomorrow.