I have urinary retention which has progressivly gotten worse over the last year.

I am seeing a new uro who wants me to re-evaluated for MS or any other neurological reasons for it, he thinks I may have been misdiagnosed as not having it.

I now seem to go into total retention about 1x per month.

MY uro sees the IC and retention as being 2 different problems, not that he has not ever seen them together but he feels it is rare, I am not too sure about this as quite a few people on the site seem to have to deal with both issues too. It is very hard to tell where one ends and the other starts, a flare will always make retention worse.

In the mean time my uro wants me to self cath 2x's per day to have all the urine drained out my bladder at least 2x's per day. This is thought to do 3 things, empty any stale urine that my increase chances of UTI's, to stop the total retention episodes, and maybe make my bladder to work on it's own better, by not getting so over full it can't contract. My reg doc is not too sure about this.

My husband and I took a lesson yesterday on self cathing, at this point for no other reason, so that I don't end up sitting in an ER waiting room in distress waiting for them to get around to seeing me, I never want to be in that position again.

Anyways I am open to any thought or suggestion for this, it is all new to me, and my uro is 500 miles away, he left it up to my GP to teach me to self cath, and I am his only pt in this position, so it is new territory to him too.

Thanks MG