I had dialation done in conjunction with a flexible cystoscopy in October, as there was some narrowing at the bladder neck.
It was done with the rods, which he wriggled and levered as if he was trying to get a tomato stake out of the ground. Fairly aggressive action, it seemed to me. Some hours later I was back at the hospital as my sphincter had completely closed and not a drop of urine was passing. I required a foley catheter for 2 days. I suspect that swelling from the dilation was responsible for the blockage. Two months after the procedure, the narrowing has returned to what it had been before, so nothing in the end was gained.
Today I had a flexible cystoscopy from a new surgeon who will be installing the AMS in me in June, as he wanted to make sure the bladder neck was OK (you can't use a catheter after the AMS is inseted). It is OK, and I was able to see it for myself on his telescope. It looked like a black hole against the pink wall of the urethra, and beyond that was an ocean of dark fluid, which was the bladder. I did a kegal while he shone the light there, and saw the sphincter work perfectly. He said that the active component of my sphincter works, but it simply won't hold in passive mode. At 14 months post surgery, there's no chance of recovery from 8 pads a day at this stage, he said. I asked him how come a normal looking sphincter could be so ineffective, and why it had occurred. It looked to him as if the operation had been performed properly, he said. He went on to say that if urologists knew why some people don't recover the use of the sphincter, they'd know what to do to fix it. But they don't.
Berb