Question
I take care of a 20 year old quad.  I have noticed that some of the nurses leave his catheter in 20 minutes to an hour to drain his bladder.  Doesn't this increase his chance for infection?  Is this a new practice?

Answer
Hi Jackie,
Thanks so much for your question.

Quite frankly, I don't understand why they would do that. It only takes a few minutes to empty the bladder.

Leaving the catheter in for an extended period of time could introduce more bacteria into the urinary tract.

I would ask the nurses why are they leaving the catheter in that long? When I was being catheterized, they would leave the catheter in for maybe 10 minutes. But, the only reason for that was my sphincter muscle would go into a spasm and tighten so as to not allow the bladder to drain. On those occasions, it would take several minutes [about 10 or so] for the muscle to relax and the bladder to empty.

Now, because I have a problem with urine reflux [backing up into the kidneys], I have an indwelling foley catheter and I have to take a maintenance antibiotic to keep urinary tract infections down.

One thing you can suggest to your patient is to drink cranberry juice and/or eat cranberries. There is a property [I believe they're called "tannins"] in cranberries that helps keep bacteria from attatching itself to the walls of the bladder and they get flushed out. They are also found in blueberries. I eat dried cranberries and blueberries as well as drink cranberry juice. I have not yet found any blueberry juice.

I hope this helps and if you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask me anytime.

Thanks again,
John McKinzie