Bladder after radiotherapy

Hi IndyBaron and welcome to the group.  I've just had a read of your profile and can see that you're on your fourth course of antibiotics.  After treatment your immune system will be down for some time so this will be why you're not clearing the infection as you would normally. Whilst not curative, have you tried anything to alleviate the pain whilst going to the toilet? You can get a sitz bath/bidet bowel, which is a special bowel filled with water that you can put in the toilet to relieve the pain of going. I used to go in the shower as I got radiation cystitis ( no antibiotics for this), and that made such a difference. Also, people have said that they used water wipes when going to the toilet and it's also important to make sure you're not using anything other than plain water or something like aqueous cream to wash with.  It's awful having such pain when going to the toilet isn't it, weeing felt like passing razor blades!  Bev 

Hi Bev, many thanks for your help and advice. Much appreciated. Chrisx

Hi Chris, I’d definitely recommend cranberry juice. It’s actually best for preventing bladder infections - it kills the bacteria before it reaches your bladder. Unfortunately lots of people only start taking it once you have the infection and it’s useless at that point. Make sure you get the actually juice as well. Hope that helps! X

Hi IndyBaron,

Firstly welcome to our little corner of the Macmillan community although I’m sorry that you’ve had the need to find us. Secondly thank you for filling in your profile with your journey so far, it’s a great help to know a little background when offering support & advice. 

You’ve had some great advice already from 1in1500 & Arightbumdeal so I’ll not repeat as everything I would have suggested has already been covered. One thing I would like to add is that I suffered a lot of internal inflammation following my treatment this sometimes imitated the symptoms I had from radiation cystitis that I suffered from week 2-3 of treatment. 

I hope you find something that offers you some relief soon. 

Nicola

Hi, many thanks for your help x