Symptoms:

The symptoms of bladder outlet obstruction may vary, but can include:

• Abdominal pain
• Continuous feeling of a full bladder
• Delayed onset of urination (urinary hesitancy)
• Frequent urination
• Inability to urinate (acute urinary retention)
• Pain on urination (dysuria)
• Slow urine flow
• Urinary tract infection
• Urine stream starts and stops (urinary intermittency)
• Waking up at night to urinate (nocturia)

Signs and tests:

If bladder outlet obstruction is suspected, your health care provider will take a thorough history of your problems. During a physical exam, your provider may find one or more of the following possible causes:

• Abdominal mass
• Cystocele (women)
• Distended bladder
• Enlarged prostate (men)

Tests may include:

• Blood chemistries to look for signs of kidney damage
• Cystoscopy and retrograde urethrogram (x-ray) to look for narrowing of the urethra
• Ultrasound to locate the blockage of urineand find out how well the bladder empties
• Urinalysis to look for blood or signs of infection in the urine
• Urine culture to check for an infection
• Uroflowmetry to determine how fast urine flows out of the body
• Urodynamic testing to see how much the urine flow is blocked and how well the bladder contracts