For the past 10 days I have been suffering with a prostate bleed from one of my self-catherizations (CIC). I have been doing CIC due to BPH for 4 years now with no issues. To try and let the wound heal my urologist said I should try to reduce the number of CICs from 4 to 2 a day. I still have good NVs between CICs. So for the past 4 days I've reduced CICs from 4 or more to 2 mainly during the night. During this time I have found that my NVs have dramatically INCREASED in frequency and intensity to as much as 300 cc at a time! For the past 24 hrs I only self-cathed one time at 2 am (still with bleeding) but this morning I had a great NV for the first time in years!! Usually I awake at 6 am in full retention. So far today I have had 4 great NVs and feel that my bladder is empty. Wierd! A few years ago jimjames posted about giving CIC a rest for a while and let the bladder take over. He had good results with that strategy. I wonder if that is at work here? Nothwithstanding the bleeding I haven't felt this good for years. No Foley for me today!
If you can do a NV why bother with CIC and risk injury?
That’s the idea. You’re rehabbing your bladder by emptying it.
Happy to hear of your progress! I haven’t had a NV since beginning CIC 6 months ago…keeping my fingers crossed for a breakthrough like yours! Curious if you have always had NVs while doing CIC or if they started during the 4 years you were self-cathing?
Patrick
Hi Patrick,
Thanks. I did not have any NV during the first 6 months of CIC at all. I could manage a few cc’s if I ran around a lot but it was very painful. I started to improve gradually over time. Until I had this mishap my NVs were typically 150 to 250 cc and my residuals were the same during the day. At night I would awake in full retention and take out 800cc or more. As long as I kept the total volume in the bladder under 500 cc or so I have a NV but if it gets bigger than that my bladder cannot push any pee out. Still it is good progress.
I don’t understand why it is so easy for m e to void large volumes in the past few days like a teenager. But at night after an hour of sleep I awake in full retention and have to CIC and then I get the bleeding. Tonight will be 24 hours between cathing so I pray no more bleeding. I did get set up today with all the Foley materials but want to wait a few more days to see if it heals. Still - these NVs are amazing!
I have to admit I am surprised by the lack of interest in my post from the CIC community . I am now nearly 4 days w/o a self-cath and voiding like a 20-year old!
I don’t understand that lack of enthusiasm - maybe there are few men now who CIC.
I even put it on jimjames old thread and did not get one response!
Hello Howard and Jimjames
Hey I am NEW to the un-fun procedure. Can you please tell me hat the abbrev mean >>
NV ? I think I get the CIC
Thx Mike
NV is Natural Void - what you pee without any aids
CIC is Clean Intermittent Catheterization where you do self-cathing. It is not sterile but clean so UTIs are a possibility. Ask away as the acronyms are confusing. Howard