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Intermittent bladder/urethra discomfort
by RobinHood70, Jun 02, 2009 01:57AM
Sorry this is so long, but there's a lot of unusual and difficult-to-describe symptoms here, so bear with me.
I'll be making an appointment with a urologist shortly, but before I get there, I wanted to get an idea of what my issues might be, because in searching around the web, I'm at a bit of a loss...nothing strongly resembles my symptoms. So I thought I'd ask here in the hopes that someone might point me in the right general direction so I can do some research of my own and ask/respond intelligently once I see the urologist.
UTI has been tested for and ruled out, but I was given a 10-day course of Doxycycline, just to be certain. There is no discharge or unusual coloration to my urine and no noticeable increase in frequency or urgency. Of note, I do have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is known to have odd symptoms in various systems, sometimes including Benign Pelvic Pain Syndrome/Interstital Cystitis, so this might be related to that.
Anyway, on to symptoms: It began about 2 months ago with a freqent odd sensation as though someone had a water pistol inside my bladder and was squirting it at the base of the urethra. There was no leakage at all, but it felt kind of like it "wanted to", for lack of a better term, but was being stopped by urethral muscles.
Over time, that sensation faded to be replaced by bladder discomfort/pain as well as urethral discomfort, but NOT on urinating...usually more likely to be a little while AFTER urinating, as though the urethra didn't like something in the urine and was reacting to the minute amounts remaining inside after I was done. The urethra discomfort also frequently occurs on its own, regardless of urination. The sensation is much like someone taking a pen to the urethra in that it's a little sharp, but not painfully so. The discomfort also sometimes extends to the outside of the penis, which becomes slightly tender, as though there were a mild sunburn. It tends to be more towards the middle or tip of the penis 95% of the time, though a few times, I've have an odd awareness of the region between my testicles and buttocks.
Both bladder and urethra discomfort are usually easily ignored, with occasionally an Advil or two if the bladder is particularly bad. Often, there's little or no sensation of anything wrong at all.
Ejaculation also feels...a little odd sometimes. It's hard to describe, but it sometimes feels similarly sharp to what I described above, and just before that, it feels almost as if I'm losing bladder control...but I'm clearly not, and the bladder is usually empty in any event. Best guess based on the sensation and timing of it is that I'm hyper-aware of the pre-ejaculate entering the urethra.
The REAL oddity here, though, is that all symptoms are almost exclusively left-sided. Occasionally the bladder discomfort will be the full width of the bladder, and there's the occasional hint of something on the right side of the urethra, but both have only happened once or twice and I suspect it's more of a radiated discomfort than anything. Symptoms also vary throughout the day, with a short-term pattern usually being bladder discomfort earlier in the day and urethral discomfort later in the day. Long-term, there seems to be a pattern of a couple of bad days followed by several good days.
Finally, eliminating coffee and tea from my diet and drinking mostly water has almost completely eliminated the bladder problems, only becoming slightly uncomfortable about mid-morning some days. It hasn't had as large of an impact on the urethral symptoms, though...they're definitely reduced, but not eliminated.
My best guess from what I've seen is Interstitial Cystitis or perhaps some kind of urethral damage, but these don't quite seem to fit. Prostate issues don't seem to fit either. Any thoughts from the community?
I'll be making an appointment with a urologist shortly, but before I get there, I wanted to get an idea of what my issues might be, because in searching around the web, I'm at a bit of a loss...nothing strongly resembles my symptoms. So I thought I'd ask here in the hopes that someone might point me in the right general direction so I can do some research of my own and ask/respond intelligently once I see the urologist.
UTI has been tested for and ruled out, but I was given a 10-day course of Doxycycline, just to be certain. There is no discharge or unusual coloration to my urine and no noticeable increase in frequency or urgency. Of note, I do have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is known to have odd symptoms in various systems, sometimes including Benign Pelvic Pain Syndrome/Interstital Cystitis, so this might be related to that.
Anyway, on to symptoms: It began about 2 months ago with a freqent odd sensation as though someone had a water pistol inside my bladder and was squirting it at the base of the urethra. There was no leakage at all, but it felt kind of like it "wanted to", for lack of a better term, but was being stopped by urethral muscles.
Over time, that sensation faded to be replaced by bladder discomfort/pain as well as urethral discomfort, but NOT on urinating...usually more likely to be a little while AFTER urinating, as though the urethra didn't like something in the urine and was reacting to the minute amounts remaining inside after I was done. The urethra discomfort also frequently occurs on its own, regardless of urination. The sensation is much like someone taking a pen to the urethra in that it's a little sharp, but not painfully so. The discomfort also sometimes extends to the outside of the penis, which becomes slightly tender, as though there were a mild sunburn. It tends to be more towards the middle or tip of the penis 95% of the time, though a few times, I've have an odd awareness of the region between my testicles and buttocks.
Both bladder and urethra discomfort are usually easily ignored, with occasionally an Advil or two if the bladder is particularly bad. Often, there's little or no sensation of anything wrong at all.
Ejaculation also feels...a little odd sometimes. It's hard to describe, but it sometimes feels similarly sharp to what I described above, and just before that, it feels almost as if I'm losing bladder control...but I'm clearly not, and the bladder is usually empty in any event. Best guess based on the sensation and timing of it is that I'm hyper-aware of the pre-ejaculate entering the urethra.
The REAL oddity here, though, is that all symptoms are almost exclusively left-sided. Occasionally the bladder discomfort will be the full width of the bladder, and there's the occasional hint of something on the right side of the urethra, but both have only happened once or twice and I suspect it's more of a radiated discomfort than anything. Symptoms also vary throughout the day, with a short-term pattern usually being bladder discomfort earlier in the day and urethral discomfort later in the day. Long-term, there seems to be a pattern of a couple of bad days followed by several good days.
Finally, eliminating coffee and tea from my diet and drinking mostly water has almost completely eliminated the bladder problems, only becoming slightly uncomfortable about mid-morning some days. It hasn't had as large of an impact on the urethral symptoms, though...they're definitely reduced, but not eliminated.
My best guess from what I've seen is Interstitial Cystitis or perhaps some kind of urethral damage, but these don't quite seem to fit. Prostate issues don't seem to fit either. Any thoughts from the community?
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Any luck getting a good diagnostic?
I've been researching & a good name for what I feel is 'urethral awareness' whereby I'm pretty much constantly feeling asthought sand is trickling through my urethral passage, anywhere from my anus to the tip
Have you been for tests? Took any other medication etc?
At this point, there's only slight bladder discomfort on rare occasions and very rarely a slight increase in sensitivity to urination. The sensation of leakage into the urethra is still there when I bear down, but again, no *actual* leakage. I don't even always react to coffee (which used to be a clear trigger), though I still will most of the time. To be on the safe side, I've been avoiding acidic/spicy food & drink, and that seems to be the biggest factor. That points to Interstitial Cystitis as the cause, but as far as I know, IC doesn't tend to improve over time.
Could also be some kind of injury or irritation to the bladder...a kidney stone I passed recently gave me very similar symptoms for several days as the stone sat in the bladder, unwilling to come out. Within a day of it (finally!) passing, most symptoms on that side of the bladder went away.
At this point, it's guesswork as to what it is, though. Since it seems to be going away, though, like I said, I'm content to wait it out.