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Jan
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A Foley catheter is one that is inserted at the hospital or in outpatient care. Unlike a catheter that is used for intermittent self-catheterization, a Foley catheter is semi-permanent. It can stay in your bladder for weeks at a time because there is a small balloon on the end that inflates inside your bladder, making it stay there and not slide out. Foley catheters are usually used for patients who cannot control their urination or patients who are too ill to use a toilet or a bedpan.
One problem with a Foley catheter, though, is that it can be harder to keep sterile than temporary catheters. There are, though, a few steps that you can take to ensure that your Foley catheter stays as sterile as possible. Not taking these steps can result in bladder infections, which can be painful and can even track back into the kidneys, which can cause major problems and complications.
The best way to keep a Foley catheter clean is to clean the area of entry on a regular basis with alcohol wipes. You should also clean out the bag the catheter is attached to once in a while, since bacteria from the bag can crawl back up the catheter and infect the urinary tract. The bag can be cleaned with soap and water, and disinfected with a bleach solution or something else that will safely kill bacteria.
If patients with Foley catheters are not already on antibiotics, doctors may put them on mild antibiotics to keep them from getting bladder infections. This isn’t a good long-term solution, but it can be a good choice for the short-term. If you go home with a Foley catheter in for some reason, be sure that you follow any instructions from your doctor about disinfecting the catheter and its extra parts.