Urinary Retention: Signs and Symptoms
What are the symptoms of urinary retention?
Acute urinary retention causes great discomfort, and even pain. You feel an urgent need to urinate but you simply can’t. The lower belly is bloated.
Chronic urinary retention, by comparison, causes mild but constant discomfort. You have difficulty starting a stream of urine. Once started, the flow is weak. You may need to go frequently, and once you finish, you still feel the need to urinate. You may dribble between trips to the toilet because your bladder is constantly full, a condition called overflow incontinence.
Information Source: National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NKUDIC) (October 2007). Urinary Retention (NIH Publication No. 08–6089). Retrieved February 5, 2008 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Web site: http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/UrinaryRetention/index.htm
