Living With A Urinary Catheter › Forums › Urethral Strictures And Their Treatments › Status 5-Weeks After End-to-End › Reply To: Status 5-Weeks After End-to-End
mrstricture,
I’m sorry to hear about that. Definitely go to your doctor soonest! Obviously I cannot diagnose anyone since I am not a medical professional. And as always, my advise for anything unexpected like your situation is to talk to your doctor.
One thing you said makes me wonder. You said your stricture was 2.5 centimeters and that your surgery was end-to-end. Was your end-to-end supplemented by a buccal graft (or any graft?) In this study, which only addresses bulbar strictures, BTW, so may not apply to you if your stricture was elsewhere, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684365/), check page 2. It says that if a stricture is 2-3 cm in length, “Some authors have expressed concern that bridging such long defects could lead to chordee and sexual dysfunction and have advocated the use of buccal mucosa substitution urethroplasty for bulbar urethral strictures >2 cm in length.” But despite that, the success rate of end-to-end is still pretty high, even for strictures >2 cm (about 87%), but is not as high as <2 cm (90+%).
From what I've been reading (clinical studies only - not just someone's opinion), sexual dysfunction is not considered "unsuccessful" if the patient can pee normally after the surgery. However, since you are saying your flow is back to what it was pre-surgery, it sounds like you may be one of the unlucky % of people for whom end-to-end was not successful.
But like I said earlier, you definitely should see your doctor about this.
I was also interested to hear that you are having gastric difficulties. I have also been having tummy-trouble since the surgery. Obviously this could be anything NOT related to urethroplasty, especially with only 2 of us reporting it. But it would be interesting to hear if anyone else has had gastric trouble post-surgery, even 6 weeks after it (which is where I am).
We'd all be interested to hear how things go for you, and wish you the best! Let us know what your doctor says!
Good luck!
KEn