Hi folks
I suspended my BCG therapy at dose number 15 because of LUTS (lower urinary tract symptoms), specifically - pain/discomfort when urinating and associated urgency and frequency. This has been going on for months. The pain is intermittent but when it happens i need a tramadol and a lie down with a hot water bottle. I need to take a pee 5-10 times a night, so not much quality sleep.
My urologist is proposing urodynamic tests to investigate it but I’m not happy about this. I believe the intravesical treatments (i.e., a tube inserted into the urethra – hope I got the terminology right) are partly responsible for my symptoms. I think this because the symptoms were slowly calming down and then I had a cystoscopy (no BCG involved) and it sparked off the symptoms again, back to square one. I know that if I want to save my bladder, I will need to undergo cystoscopies, but urodynamic testing? I can see that measuring bladder capacity, flow rate, trigger point for the afferent nerves and so on provides potentially useful data, but I don’t understand how it can be used to diagnose a specific condition or help me to manage my symptoms. I’d rather try different medications to see which, if any, works and explore changes to my lifestyle, diet and exercises to see what helps. I can’t discuss this properly with my urologist because I’m a Brit living in France with poor French and besides, the urology unit is in a small hospital and he’s the only urologist there and he is incredibly busy. I’m lucky if I get a rushed 5 minutes with him in a meeting, and I don’t get many meetings. I’d be grateful for your thoughts.
Cheers,
Mike
Hi trynab_stoical . Sorry to hear you are still in a lot of discomfort. Not had these tests myself, but I can understand your reluctance to go ahead with further invasive procedures. I suppose it comes to weighing up what the long term benefits will be. Hopefully someone who has been through this will be along to let you know what the outcome was. Best wishes.
