Hello,
I am looking for some advice. My father was diagnosed with a grade 3 transitional cell carcinoma at the end of 2023. It had spread to the lymph nodes in the pelvis and chest, and there were nodules in his chest.
He had a TURBT to remove the large tumour, 6 rounds of chemo (Cisplatin and Gemcitabine) and then 10 months of Avelumub immunotherapy. We had to stop this treatment last summer because of the side effects. However, on his last scan in January, there was no signs of cancer. Which is obviously great.
He has had 3 TURBTs in total, the last being in November. Since February this year, he has been getting bladder irritation and has been needing to urinate a lot more than normal - especially at night. We saw his urologist and he sent him for an ultrasound and a flow test. Both came back ok. He has been prescribed mirabegron to help with the irritation. This didn't help, so he has now started Solifenacin. This doesn't seem to be helping either, though he only started these a few days ago.
He has had 3 UTI's since the start of the year. It is incredibly difficult to know when he has a UTI and when it is just irritation. It seems to be getting worse. He is currently getting up at least every hour at night to urinate.
He has been taking D mannose and a probiotic supplement as I have read that these can help, I haven't noticed any improvement yet.
His urologist hasn't been overly helpful. He said if the Mirabegron didn't help, there wasn't much more he could do. He suggested he go on a prophylactic antibiotic but this can cause fibrosis on the lungs and my dad already has a lung condition, so his GP didn't think this was suitable.
I was just wondering if anyone else had been through the same and has any advice? He is unsurprisingly getting very down about it. He found having a catheter in place very uncomfortable in the past so this is something I want to avoid if possible. I find it surprising that he is getting irritation now, and not directly after the last TURBT. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Nicky
