Any link between specific exercises and incontinence improvement?

Hi Mountain,
Sorry to welcome you here but it is what it is...Welcome to HealingWell...I am sorry for the rough start. I did well with the plumbing in my DaVinci but the disease was advanced. I was, er, am young too. I was 44 in 2006 when I joined the club. I will say it is highly unusual to not be told about Kegel excercises. Is that the case? These are pelvic muscle excercises that help strengthen the urinary sphincter muscle. Perhaps you may want to look into them. Regardless, I did not do them uch and I did not leak but a tiny bit after surgery. I hope you are at least done with the cancer and that all the future tests are undetectable. Again welcome and I hope you stay with us...

Tony

    Hey Mountian,  Do not worry too much.  Your only 7 weeks post op.  Your body has been through a major surgery and it will take time to fugure things out.  I'm sure you will dry up within a few months.  All of the studies say 6 months or more is still in the normal range!  I would ease into the exercises and see how it goes.

    Good Luck,  KW

Welcome Mountain Top...here is my take on the exercise for incontinence. At first I was so intent on solving the issue that I actually overworked the muscles and had a much harder time trying to control the flow. It got so bad that I couldn't make it to the bathroom without leakage when I stood up or moved about. I got frustrated and my uro suggested to take some time off from the Kegals to let things heal...kinda like overused muscles that ache and have little strength left in them. I took about a week off from the routine and then things started to improve. After that I did the same routines, just scaled down a little to not to over work the muscles again. Some of this might be due to age in my case, but the point is...try not to over do it. I know you want to be free of the incontinence, but in your effort to resolve the issue by overworking the muscles, you could actually prolong the problem.

As others have said...give it your own bodies natural healing time...it will happen soon or later.

Hey MT,

As far as exercise goes my Uro was not very specific, so I continued with my walking and Jogging-in-place since post surgery.   I've been at about 1 pad for a while, but of course if very active that would go up.   Also Jogging In Place with all the vertical jouncing that it causes would cause a good amount of leaks.   The actual amount of leakage I know pretty well since I use the famous CUP method while Jogging in place (that's a 10 oz plastic cup attached to left leg with the old latex strap you used to use for your leg bag.   Mr Floppy goes over and in and you catch the drips -- add tissue if you don't want to slosh between emptyings.   (This only works well if you are naked while jogging or with a bathrobe or tarzanwear,  in your own exercise room).    For the last month (weeks 4-8) the drip rate has been about the same (per mile or minute or any other method you'd like to use to gauge).    I have not tried going back to any abdominal exercises.  I was thinking it's about time to start.   Will report back if I notice any drop in rate similar to what you have seen.

jim 

Here's another take on the exercise. I started walking 5 miles a day as soon as I could and along with the kegels, noticed that it made a big improvement. By the 4th week after surgery, I would leak only when getting up, crossing a high curb or straining to life something. I went back to work at 6 weeks but took a restroom break every hour on the hour. Continuing walking in the evening and was up to 7 miles at some point.

At the 9th week, I stopped wearing pads. I did not have the daVinci surgery but had a great surgeon I guess.

I am going to mention something I learned from James C. Along the road of drying up, I got to where I was leaking only occassionally and then not much, but still things happened here and there. Living in South Texas and also exercising, those pads really get hot, and caused me to sweat excessively down south. Well, I started wearing a woman's panty liner instead of a pad. I found it to work great, and because it is so much thinner - things are much cooler down south. Well, my wife had no idea that someday her husband would be wearing a kotex. Life is strange.

Hey PG ... thanks for the support on my upcoming 1st Post-PSA .... will report in 4/1 -- unless Conficker has other plans for the internet. I am optimistic on PSA results -- the only way to be.
jim

Well, I had another response to you guys typed up several days ago but don't see it here so I must have walked away without hitting the Submit button. Depending more and more on my wife for the little things.  ;-)

I haven't been doing the Kegels for a week or so now but have been doing the ab/core exercises and have consistently been using only 1-2 pads a day. I'm now doing my karate katas most mornings as well. I've even had a couple of times where I missed all the exercises for a day but no decrease in bladder control. Only one day was an exception--I have sinus problems so I took one Sudafed that day. Hadn't been able to take Sudafeds for a few years prior to surgery because it made for painfully constricted urination with my BPH. I assumed it would therefore help the post-surgery incontinence but it got worse that day. I don't do anything according to the rules.

I am noticing that as the bladder control gets better, I have to go more often and it gets pretty uncomfortable if I wait.

RBinCountry--planning on spending some time in S Fla in a few weeks--thanks for the tip.

brodie12--ordered the book from Amazon and got it within 2 days. Looks good.

Thanks for all the suggestions and support, guys!