I must begin by pointing out that I am NOT a health care professional, and I have no medical training. Please check this info with a trained health care professional if you have any questions. That said, I just was forced to wear a catheter for two weeks, and that gives one a great deal of practical information about them.
As you can see in my blog posts, I had penile implant surgery. During the surgery, the doc accidentally "nicked" my urethra (the tube which carries urine from the bladder to the end of the penis (in men). As a result, he had to sew up the leak in the urethra, and I had to wear the catheter while my urethra was healing. The healing period progressed enough so that the catheter could be removed yesterday.
When I first woke up from the surgery, and was informed of what had happened, I saw the dreaded catheter in place, and was very unhappy. The Foley catheter consists of a two piece round hose inserted into the bladder. One side is a hose open at both ends for the urine to flow through. The other side goes from a valve outside, near the end of the penis, up into the bladder where it is connected to a balloon. The balloon is inflated through this valve. When inflated, this balloon makes the catheter too large in diameter to fit back down the urethra. That is what keeps the catheter in place in your bladder. It also causes problems.
There are nerves inside your bladder, near the opening to the urethra, which tell you that your bladder is full, and you need to urinate. The problem is that the balloon and the catheter irritate these nerves, particularly if there is any downward pressure on the catheter, so that you have the strong urge to urinate. Unfortunately, because of the catheter, you have no control over urination. There are meds that your doc can give you to help with this (insist on getting them), but that sensation never goes away. If you feel it strongly, check to be sure that nothing is pulling on the catheter. This can easily happen because, for example, the catheter can be taped to your leg to provide support between your body and the urine bag outside your body. If you move your leg in such a manner as to stretch the catheter, you WILL know it because of this sensation. You will find that you must always be careful of this.
The second problem is that the catheter must be free to move up and down inside your body. The inside of the urethra is very sensitive and fragile. If the catheter can not move freely, it will abrade the inside of the urethra, which may cause it to bleed. This blood may dry on the outside of the catheter, then the dried blood may slide up inside your urethra, and cause more irritation, and much more pain. The sensation is much like if someone had clamped a small clamp on to the end of your penis, and left it dangling there. This can also, of course, cause infection, which is very dangerous. To prevent this, the end of the catheter near your penis must be kept lubricated with petroleum jelly (Vaseline). That will allow it to slide easily up inside the urethra without abrading it.
If you will have to wear a catheter outside of the hospital, be sure to get some high quality instant glue. For reasons passing understanding, the glue which holds some kinds of these adhesive patches together is water soluble. It will fall apart when you shower. You will need the glue to put it back together.
If you need more info on any of this, please let me know in a comment below, and I will do my best to answer, or get the answer.
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