Status of a Non-Kegeler

Since my surgeon's strategy for dealing with incontinence seems to be a little different than the norm, I thought that it might be beneficial to post his method and my results to date. I am by no means suggesting that anyone else should follow my surgeon's advice, and I even had doubts during the recovery process.

I should first state that I picked the most experienced surgeon that I could find in the Atlanta area, and he had performed approximately 1000 Da Vinci surgeries. I had a lot of confidence in him going in, but I knew that there were no guarantees regarding the dreaded side effects. The catheter was removed 8 days after surgery, and when I met with him on that day, he did not say anything about kegels. I asked if I should start the kegels, and he said "no, not for at least 3 weeks".

My leaking at first was minimal, but as I became more active the leaking increased. At the 3 week mark, if I was walking, I was leaking. I was only using 2-3 pads a day, but I was getting somewhat discouraged and felt that I needed to start the kegels. I spoke to my surgeon's nurse 3 weeks after the catheter was removed to ask about the kegels, and she said that she would ask the doctor and call me back. This was on a Friday, so I did not expect a call before Monday. By the time Monday rolled around, I had made significant improvements with the leaking. She failed to call back, but I decided to continue with the no kegel approach. Improvements continued until I became leak free (excluding a rare stress leak) at about the 7-8 week mark.

I have no idea if continence would have returned quicker or slower if I had done kegels. I just thought that I would share my story since my surgeon's method goes against the accepted wisdom of doing kegels.

ALSO, my first post surgery PSA was zero!!!

Like you I am a nonkegeler person and gained control in early in the first week with only sneeze protection required Second week no problem.
I would hope someone would do a study.

I did many, many sets of kegals before surgery and none after.  I was dry within a week after catheter removal.  Like everything else about this, it seems to be very individualized in our recovery...

I gave up on kegels too, still at 1 pad, with mostly stress incontinence. I think they may have improved things early on, but i wonder about the long run. My urologist said to keep them up, though. It's a hard regimen to maintain, though.