Healthy Kidneys & Urinary System

Recently Answered

• QWhat should I do if I have trouble urinating after abdominal surgery?

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  A Intermountain Healthcare answered

  After surgery, you might have trouble urinating. This might be due to your surgery. But it may also come from pain medication, discomfort, or anxiety. Here’s what to do:

  • Don’t strain or bear down while going to the bathroom. This can damage the area of your recent surgery.
  • Urinate while sitting in a few inches of warm water. Remember to avoid getting your incision wet if it hasn’t healed yet.
  • Don’t let your bladder get too full. Believe it or not, it’s easier if you urinate more often.
  • Do kegel exercises to strengthen the muscles around your vagina, bowel, and bladder. To start, tighten the muscles you use to stop the flow of urine. Hold for a count of ten, then relax the muscles slowly. Repeat several times a day, working up to 100 kegels a day.

  If you can’t urinate on your own before you leave the hospital, you may need to go home with a urinary catheter (a small tube to drain urine from the bladder). Until you can urinate on your own, follow these instructions:

  1. If you go home with a catheter in place, follow the nurse’s instructions for caring for the catheter and drainage bag. Do any exercises you’ve been taught. And make sure you know when and how the catheter will be removed.
  2. If you need to self-catheterize, a nurse will teach you how before you leave the hospital. Be sure to self-catheterize as often as your nurse has told you to -- usually every 3 to 4 hours during the day.

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• QWhat role do sphincter muscles have in urination?

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  A Northside Hospital answered

  Sphincter muscles allow for you to control urine without any leakage.

• QWhat function do the kidneys perform?

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  A RealAge answered

  Your kidneys are a pair of organs located on either side of your spine, just below your rib cage, that are crucial to the normal functioning of your body. About the size of small soup cans, the kidneys perform the complicated task of filtering metabolic waste and excess liquid from blood and optimizing the composition of blood with protein and fresh blood cells. To discard the waste and excess fluid, the kidneys create urine, which is then transported via the ureters to the bladder where it is stored until the bladder is full and needs to empty the urine out the urethra.

  This filtering process also helps your body to maintain proper levels of electrolytes (such as sodium and potassium) and hormones that can help your body maintain a healthy blood pressure, make red blood cells and keep your bones strong.

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• QHow much urine does my body produce every day?

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  A Methodist Hospital Specialty & Transplant answered

  Typically, a person should produce one to two liters of urine a day.

• QWhat are the treatment options for chronic kidney disease (CKD)?

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  A Jumo Health answered

  Treatment options for chronic kidney disease (CKD) include treating complications caused by CKD. For example, there are medicines to control high blood pressure, which help protect the heart and slow damage to the kidneys. Also, replacement hormones, such as erythropoietin and growth hormone, can be given. Special vitamin D can be taken for bone health. There is also the option of a kidney transplant.

• QWhat are nephrons?

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  A Jumo Health answered

  Nephrons are small structures inside the kidneys. Nephrons remove waste from the blood and then send the clean blood back into the body. The kidneys are made up of millions of nephrons.

• QWhat are the steps when performing CISC for girls?

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  A Jumo Health answered

  Clean intermittent self-catheterization (CISC) for girls is done as follows:

  • Gather everything needed.
  • Wash hands with soap and water before starting. Otherwise germs can get in and cause an infection.
  • Wash carefully around where urine comes out. Always remember to wash from front to back.
  • Use the first two fingers of one hand to separate the labia. The labia is the skin that covers the area where urine comes out. Doing this makes it easier to see the small hole or meatus where the catheter needs to go. The hole is at the beginning of the urethra and leads to the bladder. When girls start doing CISC, they sometimes use a mirror to help find the hole.
  • With the other hand, gently slide the rounded tip of the catheter into the hole. After a while, you will know exactly where to put the catheter and probably won’t need the mirror.
  • Keep sliding the catheter in until urine appears. This means it’s in the bladder.
  • When urine stops coming out, pull back the catheter a little to see if any more comes. When it stops completely, slowly and gently pull the catheter all the way out. Once it’s out, throw it away and wash your hands again.

  Doing CISC regularly and washing hands every time helps keep infections away. Infections can make you sick, as well as making you wet between catheterizations. Drinking plenty of water is important, too.
  Setting an alarm on a watch, phone or computer can be a useful way of reminding you to do CISC regularly.

• QWhat does it mean when someone does CISC through a stoma?

  1 Answer

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  A Jumo Health answered

  Some people need an operation where the doctor makes a small hole through the abdomen into the bladder. This hole is called a stoma. When performing CISC, the catheter can be slipped through this stoma straight into the bladder where it drains away the urine. Urine shouldn’t leak out from the stoma because the muscles close around the hole when the catheter isn’t there.