My Rezum Experience

I am a 49 year old male and would like to document my experience with Rezum. This is for informational purposes and how my experience with Rezum has been. I am not going to advocate for or against this procedure, but mainly document my experience.

On Saturday, November 28, 2020, I woke up, went to the bathroom like any other morning. Halfway into emptying my bladder, my urine flow stopped completely. I looked down into the toilet and see a red bowl, nothing but blood. After calming my nerves and trying not to stress, I was able to pass the clot that was causing the blockage.

In the ER, I had lab work and a CT scan, however, nothing abnormal came back in the results. The doctor’s best guess was a kidney stone scratched something on the way out.

Fast forward 13 months to Christmas morning 2021, the same thing happened. Having experienced this before, I decided to keep my spirits up as best I could for the holidays. The next business day, I had a physical with my GP and nothing was abnormal on any of my lab work. I scheduled an appointment with urology for a more in-depth evaluation.

My first consult was the intake and review with a PA and she highly suspected my problems were due to an enlarged prostate (BPH), so she scheduled a CT scan without and with contrast, and a cystoscopy with the urologist.

The CT results showed nothing abnormal, and my cystoscopy showed where my prostate was pushing into my bladder, which was causing the bleeding and clotting.

After discussing my options with my urologist, he scheduled me with his colleague for a Rezum consultation. In the meantime, I started taking Finasteride and Alfuzosin to help reduce my prostate just in case I was not a candidate for Rezum. The side effects of these drugs kicked in about two weeks later where my sex drive and libido significantly decreased.

Once I had my Rezum consultation and discussed all my options, I elected to undergo the Rezum procedure. My reasons were I did not want to start taking medication for the rest of my life at 49 if there were other options, and my girlfriend and I were discussing marriage and our future, and I did not want our intimacy disrupted from a lack of drive.

My appointments were not back to back, there were weeks in-between my urology appointments. During this time, I needed to go to the ER because I was not able to pass a blood clot and it prevented me from emptying my bladder. I had a catheter inserted, and had that in place for about five days, until I had to go back to the ER since I developed a UTI.

Many weeks went by before I could have my procedure done (due to a few more consultations and insurance approvals). It is hard to describe the feeling, but leading up to the procedure, I had zero anxiety until we were going to the office that morning. I was prescribed an anti-anxiety pill that I took after I signed all the consent forms, which was extremely beneficial.

Preparing for the procedure was not too terrible. Before the procedure, I had a prostate block, where the urologist goes in through the backside and numbs the prostate as best he could. After the prostate block, the nurse applied numbing gel in the urethra to numb the front side. To avoid an infection, I started taking antibiotics the day before the procedure, and the nurse injected an antibiotic into my butt right before the prostate block.

I had five injections, and the first one was not that uncomfortable, mainly because I didn’t know what to expect. Once I realized the discomfort, the first injection was over. The second injection was the worst since I knew what to expect. The third injection was almost as bad as the second, but the fourth and fifth injections were much tolerable since I knew what and when to expect discomfort. All-in-all, the discomfort was not that bad, especially considering what I had experienced the weeks prior. Each injection lasted approximately nine seconds, and did not get uncomfortable until the last two seconds of each injection. Even then, the last two seconds were not that bad, don’t get me wrong, they were uncomfortable, but not intolerable. I just focused on the fact this was helping me stay out of the ER and keeping me from having a catheter.

After the procedure, I had a catheter for five days which I took out at home myself. Removing the catheter was not as bad as I worked it up in my mind, it was as easy as emptying the water in the balloon with a syringe and then gently pulling the tube while exhaling.

Once I had the catheter removed, I had a small amount of blood in my urine for about a week. Occasionally, I had small amounts of tissue in my urine (suspected to be scabs from the injections) for three weeks after my catheter was removed.

At about 10-11 weeks after my procedure, I experienced a new side effect that I have been told starts to happen about this timeframe post procedure. My urine flow started off strong, and about a second or two into the flow, I felt a little jerk and my urine pressure had a very noticeable decrease in pressure. Similar to pinching a water hose while it is on. This has been going on for a little over a week now, but it seems to be normalizing and my urine flow seems to be consistent from start to finish.

I have a follow-up appointment with my urologist in the upcoming days to discuss and evaluate this new side effect, possibly another cystoscopy. Hopefully he will tell me this is part of the healing process.

Update as of March 22, 2023

The issue with the ‘jerk’ during urination resolved shortly after my urologist visit and I have had another follow-up since. Things have been just fine and continue to be just fine, for which I am extremely thankful..

This procedure has really done wonders to correct my issue and returned my quality of life to what it was prior to this problem.

WakeMed Urology is fantastic and I would totally recommend them.