Urinary catheter management becomes a huge presence in your life once you have one inserted. There are two really important reasons for this.
Safety
First, you need to make sure the thing doesn’t get pulled out. Most types of urinary catheters are held in place via a balloon inside your bladder, which is inflated with saline solution and is about the size of golf ball. So you can imagine what kind of problems might be associated with something pulling that balloon through your urethra (or small hole in your belly/bladder in the case of a suprapubic catheter). Jeez, it makes me cringe just thinking about it. So just being super careful about securing the catheter and making darned sure it doesn’t get tangled up or hooked on anything is a big part of urinary catheter management.
Avoiding The Dreaded UTI
The second biggest reason for carefully managing your catheter is to prevent urinary tract infection. The longer you have to wear an indwelling catheter, the more likely you are to have a UTI, generally speaking. So you really have to be vigilant about cleaning the area where the tube enters your body often. Twice a day with soap and water is recommended.
You also need to drink lots and lots of water to keep things flushed out and moving in the right direction, which is down and out of your body. That means you should avoid ever having your drainage bag above the level of you bladder for more than a few seconds at a time, if ever. Urine that is in the bag should NEVER flow back into the bladder if at all possible. And you should also try to limit the amount of time that the outlet of your catheter is exposed to the elements (air, water, etc.).
There is not a lot of scientific evidence for this part, but I think it is worth doing since it isn’t hard and could be helpful. It seems to make sense – and that is to wear your bedside drainage bag while in the shower. Some medical professionals say just to let the catheter dangle (not attached to a bag) while you’re in the shower. The argument goes that folks with indwelling catheters are already colonized with bacteria, so you’re not likely to lower you odds of infection if you leave the outlet open in the shower and briefly when changing bags. But something in me says that since there isn’t any harm in keeping the big bag (bedside drainage bag vs the leg bag) on in the shower and pinching the outlet shut when changing bags. So you might as well do it. It seems logical to me that severely limiting the time my outlet is open should help prevent a UTI. So despite the lack of evidence, I’m hedging my bets on that one.
This site is here to provide information and tips for urinary catheter management. That is literally the reason I started it. So if you have anything else to add, please leave a comment!
Cheers,
Ken
Can you tell us from what planet you imported the ~24″ long catheter pictured in your illustration above?
Here on earth, I do not believe any catheter manufactures have broken “out of the box” of the narrow thinking concept that one single 16″ length catheter size is perfect for all male catheter users on the planet.
Being that I recently have become an indwelling catheter (IC) user since May ’13, and I am also very athletically active person involved with roller skating up to 60 miles per week, I initially had to suspend this activity completely.
As I became more familiar with daily life with my IC, and learned by web researching the IC product offerings to improve many the issues surrounding use of ICs by more mobile & active people, I decided I could begin skating again, even if the intensity levels might have to be restricted.
At this point, I had combined several leg bag accessories products together to obtain an extremely stable system for holding my bag very high up on the thigh, where it needed to be for skating, but the shortness of the external portion of my catheter (~2-3″ of tube) was preventing bag positioning to be more to the front of the thigh and away from the inside. Since gravity tends to keep the penis downward pointed, and underwear tends to direct the penis tip somewhat rearward, the problem of routing the short external portion of the catheter tube sufficiently back upward, laterally to the thigh, and then forward as well, was effectively impossible with only 2-3″ of tube protrusion beyond the penis (unlike the one in your PIC).
I tried different things to see if I could capture my penis in a position that would better optimize the direction of the exiting catheter tube, but gravity and movements always shifted positon back to a penis hanging downward orientation, often causing lateral pulling on the penis tip with irritation and trauma. It was clear that the far too short external catheter tube length was too much dictating my options for optimal location of my leg bag and for comfort while vigorously exercising.
On top of this, the velcro catheter head anchors of the wide upper leg strap am using were such that their orientation forced the catheter to align vertically, further restricting the reach and path options for the external portion of the catheter.
After futile searching for longer catheters, and rejecting the stupid designs of bag extension tubes, from them being too stiff, OD over sized, and generally too bulky of a design, I decided I would make my own extensions using #12 .Fr. single use self catheters. By cutting off the tip and adding a cone there to connect with the catheter exit, I now had what I needed to fully optimize my leg bag location and my catheter exit tube routing for maximum comfort during vigorous skating exercise.
I am noe regularly doing 20 mile outdoor skates with minimum issues. I could post PICs showing the results of this process if that were allowed here.
-RRLedford
RR,
Thanks so much for your tip!
About the pic, I actually drew that one by hand because I didn’t want to run afoul of copyright laws. But the perspective is the same. I don’t remember what picture I copied, actually.
Also, I don’t think I ever actually measured my catheters, but I CAN tell you that they usually hung down pretty far. I always used a combination of the Zefon Grip-Lok LFC (Large Foley Catheter) catheter securement device and a Hollister leg bag with extension tubing.
The Grip-Lok sticks to your leg at any angle you want and holds the catheter incredibly secure. I am stunned that more Urology clinics don’t use these as standard. They are so secure that I had a VERY hard pull on a bag tube that would have pulled the catheter out of my body but for the fact that I was using a Grip-Lock. IF it had been one of those velcro things, I would have ended up in the ER.
I always wore the leg bag on the lower part of my leg, which made it much easier to empty while wearing long pants. I would just put my leg up on the toilet, pull the pant leg up, and open the valve into the toilet.
The extra tubing you can get for the Hollister leg bag is soft (not stiff) and seems like it could have done the same thing you did with the 12Fr single-use catheter bits. But hey, you do what you need to in order to get the job done, right?
If you don’t mind, can I have you post the pics you mentioned if I set up a profile for you on the site here?
Thanks again!
Ken
Sure, set up a profile & let me know what I need to do to post the PICS.
I after using two silicone catheters of size 12 Fr. back to back, that each lasted for only ~20 days before total encrustation plugging, I am very negative about silicone, which I had purchased for its silver coating, thinking it would resist bacterial encrustation plugging better than the 35-40 day latex catheters without silver, that I had been using.
Despite their thin 12 Fr. size, the silicone ones were SO STIFF and inflexible. They really traumatized my urethra and penis tip, and when I roller skated they poked the inside of my bladder too much, causing internal bleeding.
Now that I am back in a 12 Fr. latex one with “hydrogel” coating, my comfort level is off the charts.
I have also integrated a Texas external catheter with the internal Foley catheter to ensure that all stresses that the Foley would normally transfer to the urethra’s exit point at tip of penis, are instead now carried by the Texas external catheter and the outside of the penis. What an amazing improvement this has produced. I am in the middle of a week where I may end up breaking my record for total rollerskating distance for the week, which was 70 miles, and I may even break 100 miles.
I could never have tolerated this level of physical activity without all the catheter re-engineering that I have done so far, and I really want others, especially higher mobility catheter users, to have access to these same catheter performance optimization possibilities.
Richard Ledford
Thanks Richard,
I set you up and sent the details via e-mail. You should see a Posts section. Go there and click on New. Then you’ll see a place to put a title for your post and the body of the post under that. To put pictures in, just place your cursor, then click on the Add Media button. You should be able to upload pictures from there.
Thanks again!
Ken
Hello Richard…I’m writing for my husband, Buff, who is using a catheter ten times a day..I’m trying to talk him into switching but he’s worried as he likes to be active, riding his bike and working out in the gym. Could you please send us an email with pictures of how you hook your catheter up. Thank you very much.
Victoria McCharen
Hello, my name is Brian. We have a patented medical undergarmet we are in the process of producing. I think we may be of help. Is there any way of setting up a time to contact you directly, besides from this site?
Hi Brian. Sounds interesting. You can e-mail me at ken@livingwithacatheter.com. That would be best as my schedule is dicey. How does that sound?
Ken
I would also like to see the pictures because my husband used to walk and now with the catheter he is very
unhappy. He has a real problem with the catheter, by moving around he even disconnected it and the urine
was all over. He needs a better set up, we were thinking of using suspenders to keep everything in place so
that he can walk again. Need help please send info to gerdabauer1@yahoo.com