Catheter tubing, drainage, chills

[Mona~on~wheels]

I'm having so much trouble with my catheter. I use to just put a couple of pieces of paper tape on my leg, and the bedside bag in a bag that holds it under my chair, and everything was fine. But for the last 6 months nothing works! I'm not really sure what's wrong! For about 3-4 months it was leaking around my stoma half the time, and I sat in pee all day. I kept changing how I taped it tiill I got that stopped. Which means I'm taping it with 6-7 pieces of tape and it has to be just right! Drives me crazy!
Now even with all that tape I get chills all day. Whenever the urine starts to come out of my kidneys (guessing here). Since the bladder doesn't hold urine (sp catheter). I start getting chills. Just for a few seconds when it starts coming out. How I know it's coming out, is I see it rushing down the tubing. I'm trying to increase my water intake. But the only way to stop the chills is not drink very much.
I never get chills at night. I sleep on my side and it drains just fine. But it does all day if I try to drink good. Which is around 2 glasses of water 64 ozs. each and 16 oz glass of white tea. That's 144 ozs. Which makes between 2500-3000 cc's of urine. But I can't do it because of the chills.
One more thing for those of you that tilts back. Every time I tilt back I get chills and have to rush real fast & sit back up. Does that happen to anyone? Is the urine draining backwards, back inside me?
How do you run your tubing? Do you get chills if you drink alot?

[noryn]

Not sure, have you been checked for bladder or kidney stones?

[jody]

I always get chills with a uti

[jhorn4012]

SP Problems

I'm having so much trouble with my catheter. I use to just put a couple of pieces of paper tape on my leg, and the bedside bag in a bag that holds it under my chair, and everything was fine. But for the last 6 months nothing works! I'm not really sure what's wrong! For about 3-4 months it was leaking around my stoma half the time, and I sat in pee all day. I kept changing how I taped it tiill I got that stopped. Which means I'm taping it with 6-7 pieces of tape and it has to be just right! Drives me crazy!
Now even with all that tape I get chills all day. Whenever the urine starts to come out of my kidneys (guessing here). Since the bladder doesn't hold urine (sp catheter). I start getting chills. Just for a few seconds when it starts coming out. How I know it's coming out, is I see it rushing down the tubing. I'm trying to increase my water intake. But the only way to stop the chills is not drink very much.
I never get chills at night. I sleep on my side and it drains just fine. But it does all day if I try to drink good. Which is around 2 glasses of water 64 ozs. each and 16 oz glass of white tea. That's 144 ozs. Which makes between 2500-3000 cc's of urine. But I can't do it because of the chills.
One more thing for those of you that tilts back. Every time I tilt back I get chills and have to rush real fast & sit back up. Does that happen to anyone? Is the urine draining backwards, back inside me?
How do you run your tubing? Do you get chills if you drink alot?

Mona,
My daughter sometimes gets the chills when her foley/cath is clogging up. The only way you can unclog is if you have a flushing kit. But, when I tried to unclog hers I couldn't push the flushing device all the way in the tube so it kept coming off of the foley tubing. So now we know to have the foley/cath changed every 4 weeks. But it would be a good idea to get an ultra sound done to rule out kidney stones. One of the manuals on a sci forum said it's a good idea to have ultra sound done once a year. I'm not sure why your taping tubing to your leg when you wear long pants or is it b/c your wearing shorts? I put a 2x3 bandage (cut a small slit in middle of bandage) on Sam's SP which helps to keep the tube from pulling on the skin surrounding the tube. Also put a little antibacteria ointment on bandage to keep bacteria from getting into the bladder. I make sure after showering Sam I dry and put neosporin on bandage around the supra pubic opening. Check your water. We had a bit of a problem in Fort Worth water supply pharmaceuticals were showing up in large amounts in our water supply. Lately I haven't heard anything on local news about any other problems other than the cyptosproridium(spelling??) scare that we had in all of the swimming pools in the Arlington area this summer. I would like to find something to wash out the bags. Since she uses the bag for a week before changing. I'm going to have to ask her nurse that has been assigned to her through Evercare if she knows of any different way to clean the bags. Hope you find out what's not right about your SP.

[SCI-Nurse]

Mona: Chills signal that something is wrong. I would also guess that it is a possibility your bladder is spasming, forcing the urine around your tube. Have you had a C&S done? When was your last GU work up? Despite the fact that drinking more seems to cause more problems, I would strongly suggest that you drink more rather than less. It sounds to me as though you might have a stone or something like that going on.

CKF

[cmoore]

Mona please see a doctor. You seem so nice from your posts. Don't suffer. Isn't Cleburne in the DFW Metro area? There should be an SCI specialist there because there's a University medical school.

[Mona~on~wheels]

Thanks noryn & jody. I figure I need to ck things out.
I get chills with bladder stones too.

Jhorn you and Sam live close to me.
I read about all the water problems in pools this summer.
Stones stop me up. You can clean the bags with bleach.
If the catherer is stopping up this is what KLD said to do.

Frequent encrustations may be managed by a daily instillation (not an irrigation) with Renecidin solution. Your urologist would need to prescribe this for you, and teach you how to do an instillation.

(KLD)

If I'm stopping up I might try that.
I wear a dress and I tape the catheter to my leg.

Thanks CKF
I need to get a work up soon.
I had my last one done 9 mos. ago.
I had a real small kidney stone then.
I'll keep drinking lots of water.

Thanks cmoore you are so sweet.
Put a smile on my face.
I have a sci urologist in Dallas.
Guess I'll be seeing him soon.

Thanks everyone!

[cmoore]

This may make you smile too. I saw a car today with the following bumper stickers:

Right bumper : "Us Texans don't give a damn what people up north think"

Left bumper: Gore/Loserman

[madmaddmother]

Mona, nice to meet you...ya know, my son was in the hospital several times and the nurses always tried to tape his cath ...we would tell them he was allergic to the tape but until we left it on long enough to show them he was indeed allergic to it they just kept trying to tape it...then, when he had the sp done the nurse brought in an elastic band that velcroed around his leg with green velcro little bands that kept the tubing in place...what a difference it has made! and to think for about $5, a whole lot of penis trauma could have been prevented...Grrrr,
I hope you get to the bottom of your chills, I enjoy reading your posts. judy

[Mona~on~wheels]

Thanks Judy I'm doing a c&s to see if I have an infection.
I'm in the process of getting the velcro leg bands too.
Nice talking to you.

[jody]

I hope you are feeling better. if not please call your dr about how you are feeling. it really does seem like something in your cath setup is not right. I dont think the urine is draining backwards, but I have probs with big kidneys and when I used a foley, and it became blocked I felt like that, and it led to Ad, which was scary.

[Sue Pendleton]

Mona, if you have to drink a lot with the chills try drinking hot water. I microwave cold water like for tea. Hot tap water often has excess minerals from the stay in the hot water heater. A ting bit of lemon or lime juice helps too. Feel better.

[Mona~on~wheels]

Thanks jody, I took a urine sample in for testing.
Thanks for caring.

Thanks Sue! Good idea. I didn't know that about hot water.
I love lemon in my water. I need to get some.

It sure was nice to open CC up and have friends caring about me.
Makes the day start off so much brighter!!!

Have a wonderful day!

[noryn]

How did you get a sample from your suprapubic catheter?

[Mona~on~wheels]

Noryn if you have a needle & syringe you can stick the needle into the catheter.
I had a syringe but no needle. So I took the bag undone from the catheter,
and used a 50 cc syringe to get the urine from the end of the catheter.
It was sterile, so I sent it straight to the lab in the capped off syringe.