What's it like to have Rezum procedure?

Men's health
1

21 days ago (Dec 2, 2025), I had the Rezum procedure due to 6-7 year history of peeing 5 times/night, trouble starting urination, plus other symptoms of BPH.

I did not want general anesthesia so they offered me a propofol injection (deep sedation) plus fentanyl. This worked really well and I awoke refreshed and feeling ok except for a catheter in my penis.

  • First day was great.
  • 2nd day I started having bladder spasms , blood in urine and catheter blahs. Since they gave me 12(!!) steam injections into the prostate the catheter should have been left in longer but was removed after 48 hours. A few hours after it was removed, I became unable to urinate which hurt like hell. My wife drove me to the ER, a catheter was replaced and I felt 100% better immediately.
  • On day 7, they again tried to remove the catheter but again I could not urinate and so had to have it replaced.
  • It was taken out a third time on day 13 and then I was ready and could pee ok without a catheter though weaker than prior to the procedure , which is expected- all those injection make a lot of swelling inside the urethra and is why one cannot pee well after the procedure.

So week one wasn’t very good- bladder spasms, blood in urine (both are common), tip of penis pain and the urinary retention.

  • Week 2: better than week one.

    • The bladder spasms went away early in week two (Thank you!!), the blood lessened but the annoying but tolerable catheter was still there .
    • Once catheter removed on day 13, everything got a bit better.

  • Week 3:

    • Initially I had feeling of having to go urgently, plus only urinated 2 oz at a time, instead of my usual 4.
    • I Urinated at night every hour.

  • By the end of week 3:

    • most pain was gone ie pain at tip of penis, cramps),
    • I could urinate my usual 4 oz at a time,
    • the stream was a little better than before the surgery (but I hear it continues to get better until it hits a healing peak by 3 months).
    • Still peeiing pieces of dead tissue that are sloughing off where the steam injections caused the tissue to die.

Most people say that by week 6 I should be quite a bit better and then get peak improvement by three months. Will let you know.

2

I hope you are on the road to recovery, slowly but surely. I had holep 2 years ago. Took a couple of weeks for the urine to run clear and the pain free.

Hang in there it can only get better.

3

HI, Upstate New York again.

4 weeks since I had Rezum. At present I have no more blood in urine, tip of penis pain( or minimal) or cramps etc. I feel comfortable and have stopped thinking about my procedure for the most part.

Two nice improvements so far- One being it is easier to start the stream (no begging or pleading with my bladder/penis to pee) and my stream seems a bit stronger than before I had Rezum. The second is that before I had Rezum, I could only urinate 4 oz and rarely 5 oz. This week, I am able to urinate up to 7 oz (mostly at night) and during the day, 5 oz is common.

The thing I wanted the most from the procedure is not to get up 5 times a night to urinate. So far I still continue to wake up 5 times each night but it is still early and I pray for improvement in that area. I have noticed that I may leak 1/2 an oz if I get the urge to go and don’t make it to the toilet. Not very much leaking, really. Sex is back to almost normal. I have had retrograde ejaculation since starting alfuzosin and since I am still on it, I still have this issue. Not that big a deal for me. (age 73)