My husbands experience Bladder Neck Contracture I hope it will help you!

8-13-07 Radical Prostatectomy
The PSA Tests have all come back cancer free!
But he has had complications in scaring and has gone through the following procedures to keep the bladder neck open...

Office Dilations:
Lasting
1st Dilation 14 days
2nd Dilation 8 days
3rd Dilation 0 days
4th Dilation 21 days
5th Dilation 2 days
6th Dilation 21 days
7th Dilation 1 day
8th Dilation 0 days

Bladder Neck Contracture Cystoscopy In Operating Room:
Lasting
1st OR Procedure 33 days Nov 1, 2007
2nd OR Procedure 18 days Dec 7, 2007
3rd OR Procedure 32 days Dec 28, 2007
4th OR Procedure 28 days April 21, 2008
5th OR Procedure June 19, 2008

During the 5th Bladder Neck Contracture Cystoscopy the Doctor found a metal clip that had eroded to the Bladder Neck. Metal clips that clamp the blood vessels during surgery are left in the body. One had dislodged and bored it's way through the bladder neck and caused extreme scarring and closing up of the bladder neck. Which resulted in multiple surgery's until they found the clip. Since the catheter was removed he has been 8 weeks without any problem. He is now self cathing 2 times a day to keep the bladder neck open. The longest period since his original surgery a year ago! My husbands doctor has done 100's of surgery's and never had this happen. We had done a lot of research during this past year on this site and other prostate sites trying to find help for his problem... and never found any one with this complication. Spoke to other doctors about his problem of scaring but no one mentioned that a clip could come loose and erode into the bladder neck. We didn't even know the clips were left in there until doctor found one. He told us in many surgery's clips are left in (example gall bladder)but the eroding was what caused the problem. Hopefully he's on the road to a full recovery.

I hope this report will help any one with the problem of serious scaring to ask the doctor to check for dislodged metal clips!