Posted by andy on 25/3/2009, 3:12 pm

Hi there im a 44 year old male.I think Ive always had mild AP,sometimes had to use the stalls at public toilets nothing more though.Recently i moved back to the uk after living alone in France for 10 years and for a while lived at my friends house.The bathroom is very public and one night we had visitors staying over.We went out for a few beers and i was unable to use the pub toilets.When we got home i was unable to use the toilet at home .Having never had bad AP i thought i had a medical problem and after 9 hours without a pee i presented to casualty where after another two hours an attempt was made to catheter me.This for some reason resulted in a lot of bleeding and failure.Another two hours then a consultant catheterized me using a guide wire.Very painful and frightening.I spent three days in hospital and a further three weeks with an indwelling catheter.Various tests were done all was normal.After the catheter was removed i had to go for a flow test but had to leave because of being unable to do the test due to high anxiety. Since finding this site i have realized what is wrong with me but it seems to be getting a lot worse I can no longer use public toilet even in the stalls and as i live in a shared house with shared bathroom sometimes i cant use the toilet in my own home.However if i am on my own with no risk of disturbance i have no problems at all. This is taking over my life and i am anxious all the time.Ive talked to the doctor about it and been put on anti anxiety meds but that was all he did. I would love to learn to self catheter as this would give me some level of control over my problem however after my experience with categorization at hospital im very afraid of this procedure.Could i learn this using a private doctor and if so how would i find one in north wales. Sorry bout the long post Andy

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