Symptoms:
Flow of urine is lessening. Great pain is felt in the bladder, and the odor of urine is on the body. Almost total suppression can produce extreme pain in the back and bladder, and even convulsions. There is always a great desire to urinate.


Cause:
There can be a blockage of some type. See Kidney Problems, Bladder Problems, and other topics in this Urinary section.

Urine retention is generally caused by inflammation and swelling in the bladder and its outlet. Excess urine in it causes the bladder to enlarge, and can cause great pain.


Treatment:
• Poor urine flow: Take a cold sitz bath (cold partial bath, as you sit in the bathtub). Stop using salt. Drink 2 quarts a day of 50-50 orange juice and water.

• Alternate method: Take a hot sitz bath repeatedly, followed by a short cold bath. If bedridden, apply hot, followed by short cold, over bladder, genital area, and entire length of spine.

• Give a high enema of catnip tea. This is important in helping the urine to again begin flowing.

• Drink more water and take herbs which increase urine flow. Corn-silk tea is the best; others include juniper berries, carrot tops, comfrey, plantain, cleavers, chickweed.

• Insert a soft catheter and draw out the urine. Steep the following in a quart of boiling water: 1 tsp. goldenseal and a half tsp. each of boric acid and myrrh. Strain through a fine cloth, and inject through a fountain syringe. Retain as long as possible. You can moisten the tip with slippery elm tea. Slipper elm is slippery!

• A cold shower often helps.

• Stopped urine flow: Almost total urine suppression generally points to the kidneys as the problem.

• Put the person to bed; give him a very warm high enema of catnip tea. This will bring great relief. Also apply hot fomentations, wrung out of smartweed tea, to the bladder and lumbar region (small of back). Give 2-3 hot sitz baths in a bathtub, each day.

• An especially helpful remedy is a strong, hot as can be taken, tea of catnip, given as an enema. Drink it freely.