Bless you, I feel your pain! Suggestion: Using bathwater helps me. I, too, have some issues with retention and have not been doing this quite as long as some of our other friends here. While bathing, I roll over to use the enema (out of the water for the insertion) and rolling back onto my left side in the water when finished-- seems the pressure of the water helps me to keep a barrier of retention for a while. Soaking for awhile does seem to help retain most of it--a little. If I cannot use the entire bottle and lose some upon rising, I finish it the next round. Or, if I happen to urgently have to go, I can finish using the remainder before retiring. That's the only suggestion that I have as I, too, am learning.
I hate that your flare-ups are often. I wish I could figure out what to do for the intense pain! I have hyosycamine, but that does not touch my leftsided pain. I thought my flare up would be so much better with summer and seemed to be for a short time, but I am flaring more than ever now and cannot possibly go back to my teaching job with 3 - 4 days of constant throne time each week. Not enough years to retire. . . One thing affects another. Now, insurance will expire this month. I noticed when trying to stock up on refills for canasa, apriso, and mesalamine how terribly expensive these meds will be without that BC/BS@#@!!!! Good luck; Hope this helps a little.