I haven't been on here for a while but things are good with my husband at the moment. His radiotherapy finished at the end of June and he had been really well. His oncologist told him at the beginning of November that a scan had shown there was no sign of cancer in his bladder or in the nearby lymph node that had been affected or anywhere else in his body. All great news!
A week later he started having UTI symptoms so he went to our GP who prescribed a low dose antibiotic and sent off a sample to the lab. Two days later, the GP phoned and told him that the pathology showed no UTI so he was to stop the ABs. He was feeling much better so did as she told him then the next day the UTI was back with pain and frequency. So instead of going to his GP he took a sample of urine into the Urology Dept at our local hospital. They tested his urine and told him that there was a urine infection and put him on a stronger antibiotic - Co-Amoxiclav. The last tablet of the course was on Christmas Day. Two days later he was struggling again with frequency and pain and on the Monday following Christmas he again took a sample to the Urology Department. This time the pathology report showed pseudomonas, which is a super bug apparently and he was put on a 10 day course of Ciprofloxacin, which, touch wood, seems to have worked. The problem is that he self catheterises and that doesn't help as it often causes the infection. My point though is to say to everyone that it is not much help going to a GP with a UTI as I am sure they just treat it like cystitis and as others have said they do not know much about bladder cancer. So our advice is to go to the Urology Department in your local hospital as there is more chance of them sorting out the problem.
Last week he had a cystoscopy to check his bladder and again no cancer was found. So fingers crossed for the next one.
