First investigations

First I got called up to the hospital for a CT scan, to make sure the blood wasn’t coming from my kidneys. It wasn’t, so I got an appointment at the urology clinic. By this time it was the end of June.

Before my appointment I had to record frequency and volume of urination and (separately) how long the first 100 ml of urine took. My trip to the clinic started with uroflowmetry, peeing into a machine that records the volume of urine over time. That showed that there was definitely something wrong, the flow was way too low.

The doctor then did a cystoscopy, or at least tried to. He only got a couple of centimetres in before hitting a blockage, with only about a 1 mm passage through it. That explained the difficulties.

He then said he’d have me scheduled for a urethrotomy (DVIU), without really explaining anything about the procedure. He seemed more concerned about the difficulties of scheduling it, with very little time left before everyone went on their summer holidays, than talking to me. Unfortunately that turned out to be a pattern in the urology department. They didn’t do any further investigations of how long the stricture was.

Getting to see a urologist

I made an appointment at the local hospital’s STD clinic, thinking they were a good way to get into the system. They found evidence of inflammation in my urethra (which has been happening for years, without any positive test results for infection) and immediately assumed it was being caused by an STD and wanted me to start on antibiotics while I waited for test results.

Instead of waiting and taking antibiotics that I was fairly sure I didn’t need I made an appointment with my GP. He also immediately leapt to the conclusion that it was probably chlamydia. Fortunately my husband, who is himself a doctor, was there and pointed out that for men any sign of blood in the urine means that you should be referred to urology. The GP grudgingly gave in and referred me.

The STD tests came back negative, unsurprisingly.