How To Use A Urinary Intermittent Female Catheter

The information provided in this video is not medical advice. Please follow the advice of your personal physician or other healthcare provider in performing self-catheterization. If you experience any persistent pain or discomfort associated with the catheter, consult with a medical professional.

Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Randy Golden for Medical Technologies of Georgia and I’m here today to introduce everybody to our new uncoated intermittent catheters.

Let’s take a look at what’s inside each package.

You get the catheter and on the male and pediatric lengths we also include the “no touch” sleeve and that’s a nice protector so that you don’t actually touch the surface of the catheter as you insert the catheter forward.

Before you use the catheters you want to verify French size, length and catheter tip are as prescribed by your doctor.

MTG catheters are available in French sizes 6 through 16 and in coude and straight tip as well as in soft or firm vinyl. The soft vinyl is a nice alternative if you’ve ever had any experience with sensation as you catheterize.

So let’s look at each of the individual catheters we offer.

First of all the pediatric style are 10 inches long with the appropriate color-coded funnel. This one happens to be an 8 because it is an international color coding. The pediatric products do come with a “no touch” sleeve.

For ladies we have the female length catheter which doesn’t have the sleeve and the reason being that we felt like there wasn’t enough room on the catheter to be able to hold the catheter and the sleeve and we thought the sleeve might just get in the way so we offer this one without the sleeve but again as you watch the female video you see how easy this catheter is to insert.

For male users we have a couple different options.

The 16 inch long male catheter does come with the blue “no touch” sleeve. This is our firm option, we also make that exact same catheter in a softer variety, so if you have any sensation as you catheterize, you may wish to try the soft variety as it is going to be more comfortable to insert, again with the blue “no touch” sleeve.

And then finally we offer the coude variety. This happens to be a 16 again, the orange tip, and you see here the end of the catheter has a little bend on it, and that is designed to get the catheter past any strictures along the way or an enlarged prostate.

All of our catheters whether it be coude, pediatric etc. all have rounded fire-polished eyelets so they’re going to be less traumatic as the catheter passes through the urethra, less irritating.

And all of our catheters are DEHP free. There isn’t any of the DEHP carcinogens in any of our catheters.

Hygiene is very important when you catheterize. Always remember to wash your hands and your genitalia prior to catheterization and afterwards.

For catheterization of the female patient using the uncoated catheter and jelly. Let’s talk about that process.

So the first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to set the catheter aside for the time being and I’m going to open up the sterile lubricant packet.

And I find it the easiest way to do this is to open both ends of the packaging, just like I’m doing here, and then just open up a channel and set the lube packet aside.

And the catheter, what I want to do here is I just want to open it up, slightly, open the package up about this far. And now I want to go back, I’m going to wash my hands and wash the genitalia.

When I’m ready to cath, I’m going to take the catheter, by the white funnel. This happens to be a 12 French, depending on the French size, that’s going to dictate what color the funnel is.

And I’m going to take the catheter and run it through the gel packet, just like so. And I’m going to go back and forth and twist and turn a little bit just to get a little bit of jelly on here. The female catheterization doesn’t require as much jelly as the male, and that’s really a perfect amount right there.

I’m right-handed, so I’m going to do all the advancing with my right hand and I’m going to hold the labia separated with my left.

I’m going to use two fingers to do so, and I’m going to insert the catheter and the jelly like so. Seems very easy to go in.

When I see urine, I’m going to give the catheter one more short advancement to get the catheter right in the center of the bladder. And I’m going to direct the fluid down into the toilet when I’m finished and I see no more fluid flowing, I’m going to pull the catheter out about a half an inch to see if I have additional fluid. When I’m completely empty, again, by always using that funnel, I pull the catheter out and I reach back and I get toilet tissue to grab the eyes of the catheter so I don’t have any leakage from here.

From here just toss everything away and then you want to course go back and clean the labia. I always wipe downward. And you want to get a little soap and water and clean up afterwards.

Please remember that used catheters can be a potential biohazard. Please dispose of these using accepted medical practice.

Thank you for watching our video today.

If you’d like samples please go to our website mtgcatheters.com where you can get samples of our uncoated catheters, our hydrophilic catheters and if you’re having issues with recurring urinary tract infections, you can request samples of our closed system intermittent catheters which are designed to reduce the risk of UTI’s.