As a nurse practitioner at Georgia Urology’s Help Awaiting Wet Kids (HAWK) Clinic, I spend my day seeing kids with voiding problems. A common concern with boys that come to our office is difficulty with urination or an abnormal urinary stream. There are several reasons this can happen, one of which is meatal stenosis, or a narrow urethral opening. My goal today is to briefly provide a definition for meatal stenosis, common causes, and treatment options available within our practice.
Definition
Meatal stenosis is a narrowing of the urethral meatus or opening at the tip of the penis in boys after circumcision.
Symptoms
Urine spraying, or deflected urinary stream.
Irritative voiding symptoms such as frequent urination, urgency, or burning with urination.
Urethral bleeding.
A high pressure, thin urinary stream.
Common Causes
Repetitive inflammation and injury to the tip of the penis, usually caused by rubbing from the diaper.
Diagnosis
To diagnose meatal stenosis, one of our providers may ask to see your child’s urinary stream by watching them void.
Sometimes a special test called a “uroflow” will help in the diagnosis. This test looks at the urine flow rate and is done by having your child urinate into a special toilet.
Treatment Options
Meatal stenosis is corrected with a short surgery, called a meatoplasty.
This is performed in the operating room under anesthesia. The purpose is to make the urethral meatus larger, allowing urine to pass more freely.
If you are concerned your child may be experiencing these urinary symptoms, make an appointment with one of our Nurse Practitioners for further evaluation. Schedule online or call one of our office locations. Plan to have your child arrive with a full bladder as we will need to witness your child void if toilet trained.
Southeast’s Largest Urology Practice Reaches Milestone Using Groundbreaking Robotics Patients struggling with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), also known as enlarged prostate, can find relief by trusting the experts at Georgia Urology, the largest urology practice in the Southeast. On September 24, the practice played a key role in helping Northside Hospital Forsyth reach a milestone […]
In September 2020, Georgia Urology’s Dr. Lambda Msezane was featured on 11 Alive’s “Atlanta & Company” daily show. She was also featured in an accompanying written piece in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). In both, she discussed prostate cancer in African American Men and immunotherapy— a treatment option designated to help the immune system fight metastatic […]
Georgia Urology — the largest urology practice in the Southeast and the fifth largest of its kind in the country — has appointed Dr. Andrew Kirsch as its new Medical Director. Thanks to Dr. Kirsch’s wide acclaim and impressive career, patients looking for a best-in-class urology practice can choose with confidence. As Medical Director of […]
