Difficulty Urinating After Surgery?

Question

Hi. I am a 20 year old male that had surgery completed about 12 hours ago under general anesthesia. Ever since I have been home it has been difficult, but not painful for me to urinate. I have to sit down and it can take 5 minutes before anything comes out. Is that a cause for concern?

Garrett A. Wirth, MD, MS, FACS · Answer

It is not uncommon to have some difficulty urinating after surgery, especially if the surgery was more than a couple of hours and even more common when a catheter had been placed in your bladder during the time of the surgery.

Jose Luis Acosta Collado, MD · Answer

Greetings, thanks for your questions, usually when general anesthesia is used and in any surgery of more than 3 hours in length, a tube or urinary catheter is placed in the urinary meatus to collect and measure the urine output during surgery ( I do not know if this is your case), the mere fact of placing the catheter can irritate the urethra produce some urinating difficulty , this feeling usually disappears with the passage of days, antibiotics are useful in the case of urethritis

Difficulty Urinating After Surgery?

Answers (2)