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Hi All!
I have stayed away from the forum the past year, just too busy with work. It's good news that I have been doing very well but I have a different problem now which may be related to the surgery and wanted to get feedback from the forum.
The scoliosis surgery and recovery knocks the wind out of you for sure and makes other annoyances seem small in comparison. So I hadn't really paid attention post op to the fact that it seemed difficult to urinate. Not terribly difficult, just harder. I chalked it up to the narcotics and moved on. I have been off the narcotics since about two months pre-op but the problem persisted, but I just moved on. Since xmas, it was really starting to bug me so I went and had it worked by urology as I had no idea what was causing it. So I had a cystoscopy and a crazy pee test where you have electrodes all over so they can measure nerve activity to pinpoint the problem. The urologist even did a speculum exam to make sure it wasn't a problem of everything falling down.
Result today is that I have no bladder muscle activity and he was really surprised as I am not diabetic, normal weight and healthy. So how have I been urinating? It's called valsalva voiding - I use my abdominal muscles to squeeze my bladder dry. And I do such a good job apparently that he recommends no treatment as there really is no good treatment unless you want to install electrodes in the sacrum. Um, no thanks. I guess all that PT to strengthen the abdominal muscles paid off. So he thinks the nerve activity was interrupted by the surgery, but this is just conjecture. I did have an anterior procedure as well as posterior.
I'm really doing OK and glad to know what is going on but I don't think I've heard anybody else on the forum complain about this. So I am curious if anybody else has had a similar problem.
I have stayed away from the forum the past year, just too busy with work. It's good news that I have been doing very well but I have a different problem now which may be related to the surgery and wanted to get feedback from the forum.
The scoliosis surgery and recovery knocks the wind out of you for sure and makes other annoyances seem small in comparison. So I hadn't really paid attention post op to the fact that it seemed difficult to urinate. Not terribly difficult, just harder. I chalked it up to the narcotics and moved on. I have been off the narcotics since about two months pre-op but the problem persisted, but I just moved on. Since xmas, it was really starting to bug me so I went and had it worked by urology as I had no idea what was causing it. So I had a cystoscopy and a crazy pee test where you have electrodes all over so they can measure nerve activity to pinpoint the problem. The urologist even did a speculum exam to make sure it wasn't a problem of everything falling down.
Result today is that I have no bladder muscle activity and he was really surprised as I am not diabetic, normal weight and healthy. So how have I been urinating? It's called valsalva voiding - I use my abdominal muscles to squeeze my bladder dry. And I do such a good job apparently that he recommends no treatment as there really is no good treatment unless you want to install electrodes in the sacrum. Um, no thanks. I guess all that PT to strengthen the abdominal muscles paid off. So he thinks the nerve activity was interrupted by the surgery, but this is just conjecture. I did have an anterior procedure as well as posterior.
I'm really doing OK and glad to know what is going on but I don't think I've heard anybody else on the forum complain about this. So I am curious if anybody else has had a similar problem.