Late last night my wife and I received a call from a friend who’s husband needed to go to the emergency room, and asked if we could watch their son (6) while they went to the hospital.
I’m a little unclear on some details, but here’s what I gather had happened:
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The husband had had surgery on his shoulder that morning. I don’t know the details, but it was outpatient surgery, and involved some pain he’d been having. I recall the words “rotator cuff” or somesuch were involved. I gathered it was some sort of arthoscopic procedure.
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After the surgery, the husband felt fine, in fact, he felt well enough to attend a belt ceremony at his Tae Kwan Do school that evening.
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Since the surgery, and all that day, he hadn’t voided his bladder. After about 10 hours of non-peeing, he called his doctor, who told him to get to the emergency room pronto.
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They went to the emergency room, and he was hooked up to a catheter and de-peed in some fashion. Later that night, they picked up their son from our house. I was half-asleep at the time, and didn’t get a chance to ask questions other than “is Mark OK?”; he was.
So:
How/why could shoulder surgery cause your bladder to shut down? And why would a catheter cure the problem – I’d think whatever was holding things up would still be present…?
I don’t know the answer and have wondered the same thing. However, usually if you have outpatient surgery they won’t release you until you have peed to make sure that you don’t have the shutdown. Sounds like the hospital wasn’t very careful.
According to this the inability to urinate may be one of the side effects of an epidural anesthetic.
Maybe other types, as well.
When you have the catheter fitted you don’t have to worry about emptying your bladder, it becomes self emptying. Liquid just passes right on through you and out again. However after the catheter is removed and before being released from the hospital you do have to prove you can take a leak all on your own.
Many of the drugs used perioperatively, cause urinary retention. Normally, one wouldn’t be discharged from day surgery recovery until after the bladder had been voided.
Also, opiates often cause urinary retention, so his post op pain meds may contribute.
You didn’t mention his age, but if he’s over 45 or so, he could also have prostate enlargement. In the face of the other factors, even a slight enlargement could cause problems.
I finally talked to one of them, the wife – she says the doctor told her that the anesthetic had caused the bladder to shut down. She was also surprised that her husband was released before urinating.