Ken,
You say your stricture might have been caused by prior surgeries that involved catheterization. My question is: Prior to your Urethroplasty; when was the last surgery you had, and did you notice any discomfort from the Catheter? I’m just trying to gauge how long it might have taken for your stricture to form? I’m just starting to realize I can only drink water, or I have issues post-voiding. I also can’t have spicy food either. I really miss drinking whatever I want. Before I had that catheter done I had been able to eat and drink whatever I wanted with no irritation whatsoever. On another note, I ordered my medical records prior to putting in a complaint to the hospital, and they left out a few pages of my discharge paperwork. The piece they left out was that the reason they did a catheter was that I was unable to void on my own, which was a total lie because I gave a clean specimen the prior ER visit on my own. The Doctor tending to me that day insisted on it so he could have a sterile specimen. And my girlfriend was in the room to witness all of this. I have already contacted a lawyer. I, like yourself hate the thought of suing, but this is definitely a reason to stand up and fight. The fact they did that while there was a MRSA outbreak in my groin gives me even more reason to sue. My first trip to the ER I WAS TOLD I WOULD BE CALLED BACK IN 2 DAYS IF MY RASH CULTURE CAME BACK POSITIVE FOR MRSA. That first trip was on a WEDNESDAY. They knew it was MRSA on FRIDAY, yet I received no call back. Had they called me back I would’ve never went to the ER again on Saturday where they unnecessarily catheterized me because I would’ve had the appropriate antibiotic for the MRSA. The original antibiotic I left with after the first visit was making me worse because it was resistant to the strain of MRSA I had. I’m sorry for the rant. It’s good to see you’re healing. I know you’re pain will subside. I will say the experience of scrotal pain you’re having could be from slowing you’re sexual activity. I know that I get pain there, too from being inactive. I realize you’re healing still so that prevents you from doing the deed. Only you would know when you’re ready. I myself am having intimacy problems from the trauma of the catheter. I’ve released a few times, and it did relieve some of the pain in that area. I can’t compare myself to you because obviously you have a large incision that heals, but when the time is right and you become active again I will bet that everything will become less tense down there. I’m no doctor, as we all say, but it makes sense. I hope all is well and wish you a complete recovery very soon. I hope I heal up without issues, because it’ll be hard for me to have surgery. The reason being is it scares me to have somebody messing around with my private area and once you have MRSA, it’s there for life. It’s a horrible infectious disease. Mine is CA-MRSA, which is community acquired. It’s hard to do surgery on people with MRSA because they have to be colonized first, otherwise the incision site can become infected with it. And with the overuse of antibiotics these days there are so many different strands of it out in the community and in hospital settings. Sometimes the most powerful antibiotics can’t beat the bacteria. My particular MRSA came out after my PCP prescribed me ciprofloxacin which I had already used before a few years back. I’ve been pretty hard on myself lately. I feel like this is partly my fault. All the times I took Cipro there was never any infection present in the urine. I just felt symptoms of a uti, but in reality it was probably something I was thinking about in my head which made me think there was a problem when there wasn’t. I really wish I could go back and change all of this. All I can do is hope for the best, at this point.
Neil