Client Teaching Guides for Home Health Care: Patient Teaching Guidelines for Foley Catheter Care. Sometimes injuries and illnesses make it hard, or impossible, for you to urinate on your own. For this reason, you need an indwelling catheter, also called an indwelling foley catheter. This urethral catheter stays in your bladder and drains your urine into a bag. It is important to know how to take care of your Foley Catheter. Good care may help prevent infection.
Basic Foley Catheter Care.
Here are some important tips:
You will need to flush your catheter if it is clogged.
Changing your urinary catheter bag.
You may change your drainage bag once a week. You may reuse this bag if you clean it:
Changing your catheter.
When you have a catheter, you are at risk for having a bladder infection. Bladder infections can be serious. For this reason, it is important to take great care of your catheter.
Always follow the instructions your doctor or home health nurse gave you.
If the tubing and catheter do come apart, you must clean both ends carefully. Use alcohol to clean the ends. Then, put them back together.
There may be times that you need to change your catheter or tubing. To check if your catheter needs to be changed:
When you change your catheter, remember these things:
Call your doctor if you notice any of the following:
Emptying Your Foley Catheter
Your doctor will tell you how often to empty your catheter. Be sure to measure how much urine you drain. Keep a record of these amounts in a notebook.
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