What can I do to reduce the pain from BCG?

Hi , sorry to hear that you're dealing with pain from BCG. I wanted to connect you with who sounds like he is also dealing with something similar. You can read more in his recent post: https://bladdercancer.net/stories/after-effects-bcg. Have you been able to ask your doctor about possible treatments or techniques for managing pain? I do hope that you will get some relief for this soon. Do keep in touch with how you are doing and know that this community is here for you. -Sarah (BladderCancer.net Team Member)

Hi dgrebes! sorry to hear that you are experiencing pain with your BCG treatment. I was diagnosed with high grade bladder cancer just under 2 years ago and since have been through a number of BCG treatments. The pain you endure whilst taking BCG is common place. I found that I could be in pain for up to 3 or 4 after any procedure, particularly when passing urine. I tried many a pain killers to relieve this pain, but nothing seemed to work. I then started to increase my intake of water and although initially the pain was present. I found that this would decrease and become much more manageable, a lot quicker. I drink up to at least 2 litres a day, which will increase the amount of times that you will have to urinate, but I believe it speeds up the healing process within your bladder wall and urethra, which become irritated by the procedures you go through each week and of course the BCG vaccine. It may sound like an un-realistic fix for dealing with the pain, but its worked for me. I also suffer with pain in my lower back when taking BCG and for this I do take the occasional pain killer. I do hope my experience with dealing with pain from BCG is of some help to you and please keep us update on how things go and good luck with the remainder of your BCG treatments - Noel, (BladderCancer.net Team Member)