My mom and dad saw the commercial with the lady who was talking about how she has to re-use catheters. My mom wanted to know why someone would have to use a catheter EVERYDAY. I understand about the use of catheters in the hospital. For some reason, I'm stumped about any conditions that may require the use intermittent catheterization several times a day.... long term.
BPH would require a catheter, but after surgery it wouldn't be necessary for the patient to cath themselves.
A paraplegic would require it several times a day or they would have an indwelling, I suppose. That's long term. I don't know. Can anyone help me with this?
It safer for patients to do intermittent self catheterization every 4-6 hours using the same catheter. They are trained to cleanse the catheter with soap and water after each use. The patient is exposed to their own normal bacteria. A catheter can be used a day or a week.
This is incorrect. While it is not necessary for those doing intermittent self-cathing (IC) to use sterile technique (clean is fine), it is NOT safer to reuse catheters than it is to use a new, sterile catheter each time. The high rate of UTIs among those reusing catheters is why Medicare changed their rules to cover a new sterile catheter for each use (up to 200/month) instead of only providing 4-8 catheters per month.
For some people with neurogenic bladders like Me, IC is simply not an option. I use an indwelling cath 24/7. I am far from alone in preferring to use a Foley rather than having a suprapubic catheter. And while I am colonized with bacteria, I actually have very few actual UTIs because I drink at least 3-4 liters of water every day, use D-Mannose to prevent e. coli. infections, and do prophylactic bladder washes with a product called Microcyn.
(I'm an incomplete quad wheelchair user with spinal cord damage from C2-T4 resulting from the excision x 3 and radiation of an anaplastic astrocytoma.)
Johnny Knoxville straight caths himself twice a day in order to prevent buildup of scar tissue after he sustained some sort of, ahem, "injury" during Jackass.
In peds I once took care of a patient who had a copper deficiency which caused him to have a multitude of problems including a need for straight cathing every 6 hours.
thehipcrip
109 Posts
This is incorrect. While it is not necessary for those doing intermittent self-cathing (IC) to use sterile technique (clean is fine), it is NOT safer to reuse catheters than it is to use a new, sterile catheter each time. The high rate of UTIs among those reusing catheters is why Medicare changed their rules to cover a new sterile catheter for each use (up to 200/month) instead of only providing 4-8 catheters per month.
For some people with neurogenic bladders like Me, IC is simply not an option. I use an indwelling cath 24/7. I am far from alone in preferring to use a Foley rather than having a suprapubic catheter. And while I am colonized with bacteria, I actually have very few actual UTIs because I drink at least 3-4 liters of water every day, use D-Mannose to prevent e. coli. infections, and do prophylactic bladder washes with a product called Microcyn.
(I'm an incomplete quad wheelchair user with spinal cord damage from C2-T4 resulting from the excision x 3 and radiation of an anaplastic astrocytoma.)