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Doctors have given my grandfather the option of keeping his catheter the way it is or switching to a suprapubic catheter. Any one have experience with this? How are they to keep clean? He gets UTIs quite frequently with his catheter now, do the suprapubic help reduce this at all? How about changing it, we have home health come monthly now and change his catheter, is home health able to change these or do we have to go in to have it changed whenever it is due? And how easy is it for the caregivers?


Yes I know I can talk to the doctor. Just curious if anyone here has any experience with them (:

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My quadriplegic dad has had a suprapubic for about 6 years now. For the most part it’s been great. He has never seemed to have an issue with infection, although his urine always tests a bit sketchy and long ago his spinal cord injury doc advised us to only treat when serious symptoms present themselves.

I would say it is doable for home caregivers.

Home health (now hospice) changes out the catheter once a month. We flush the catheter with saline twice a day as advised and instructed by his urologist’s PA to prevent it clogging (a problem he’s had the last few years).
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My late husband had a supra pubic catheter for the last 2 years of his life. For me and him it was a Godsend as he was getting up every hour on the hour to pee, and neither of us were getting any sleep.
I only had to empty his bag twice a day, once in the morning and once before we went to bed.
The nursing agency we initially had coming to the house wasn't sure their nurses knew how to change out the catheter which we were told would have to changed every 4-6 weeks, which was concerning to me, and I just didn't feel comfortable trying to do it myself, so I took my husband to his urologist for the first couple of changes.
It was a few months later that my husband developed aspiration pneumonia and almost died and ended up under hospice care in our home for the rest of his life.
And even the big hospice agency in our city only had one nurse that was comfortable changing out his catheter, which I found unbelievable. And they kept asking me if I wanted to learn how. I found humor in that because if no one there was comfortable doing it, why would they think that I would be?
Anyway, I digress. My husband did end up with a couple UTI's while having the supra pubic catheter in, but nothing major, and overall it made life much easier for us both.
So I would just make sure that the home health agency you have now has folks that will be comfortable changing it, as it's very different from changing out a regular catheter.
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Cleaning either type of catheter - when it is inserted - is rather easy: soap and water cleaning daily of male parts (backside is last to be washed) and rinse with clear water. Sometimes, using a disinfectant wipe can help keep infections down by wiping catheter (not him) daily or after bowel movements. As a nurse, I have found there isn't a lot of difference in UTI's between either type of catheter when cleansing is done appropriately. If he has BPH, a suprapubic catheter may be more comfortable.
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