Leak Free Pad Free - Poll

Just throwing my 2 cents in -

 

I'm 18 months out and I still wear one light pad a day. I randomly squirt 5 - 10 grams (yes, I 've weighed them) during the day. Coughing & sneezing are the worst, but my beer or wine in the evening does not help. I can get after it pretty well in soccer practice these days - but I still have to be careful.  I finish drier after some practices than others.

 

I am totally convinced that the type of surgery you have does not matter in this case - it is individual-by-individual. And we had a string going 9-12 months ago (I think) that indicated that there are a lot of "leaking lurkers" out there. They just don't answer up after a bunch of guys have said, "I was riding my Harley and boffing my wife 48 hours after surgery." Well, I wasn't - but I'm not complaining. I love every day now. It sure beats the alternative.

 

kcragman  

Glad you finally went dry, Oyster, that's an important milestone in your recovery process.

Alfred The good thing about using averages it still gives a fair guide to what is going on it is fair to say that the more results that you get the more accurate the readings but the average for open (13.3%)against Robotic (35.7%) is quite a big difference in favour of the open surgery

Hi Jeff and others,

I don't want to get bogged down in how statistics must and must not be anaylised, nor would I want to make people start posting off message here because they may regard this post as negative or counter-productive, but be very wary about drawing the wrong, or too many, conclusions from this poll.

This is really only a poll about one issue, and there is nothing wrong with that, but it is not a survey, and as Jeff pointed out at the start it is not being conducted scientifically. It does not for instance include any data about all the other relevant factors for us to be able to draw conclusions about the consequences for continence of having open or robot surgery.

We should not allow ourselves to think we know enough about enough things to try and use this poll to make a case for one or other treatment because of incontinence aspects.

The overall totals, regardless of the type of operation, at 3 months and a year are the only numbers that may eventually provide reliable data. They make interesting reading, but even they are not watertight, as the people answering this poll come from a very restricted PCa group (Specifically people motivated to be on this forum in the first place, and who then choosing to answer the poll.)
It might be necessary for about a thousand people to respond before the information is truly of any use.

There is also a subtle error in the question, which Jeff hinted at, in as much as some people who are continent may well "leave the house wearing a pad" if they do not have the confidence to do otherwise. And other people may leak a little in their underpants, but not bother to wear pads as a tiny dribble is for them not an issue (I include myself in that group as I still have one or two tiny dribbles per week.)


The hospital where I was treated has asked me to take part in a number of surveys and in one I was asked about ten questions about continence. The questions included things like:
have you avoided doing things away from home because you like to be near a bathroom?
has your incontinence affected your social life?
has your incontinence affected your family life?
have you lost any urine involuntarily?
how often do you have to go? etc?

and the answers could be selected from: not at all; a bit; a lot or all the time.

For me, and perhaps for others too, Continence, was and is thus not about the Yes/No question, it is about the much vaguer business of:
how much
how often and perhaps most crucially
how much of a nuisance is it.

(My answers being "about 150ml", "about every 100 minutes" and "a bit")


Anyway fortunately it is only the weather that is really wet in Holland today!

Greetings to all
Alfred

(Sorry. I had to edit things after noticing far too many spelling errors even for early on a Monday morning - though don't forget the time I post is European time not the time on the top line so it was office hours)

bump

Used pad until  months.

All
Here is our data so far with a total of 86 responses.
There is a larger, more scientific, (and no doubt funded) study that shows similar incontinence results after Robotic vs open surgery..
http://www.psa-rising.com/mednews/surgery/95-mirp-1109
The study tracked surgeries performed from 2001 -2006 with 2 year follow up.
open beat Robotic for incontinence and Ed performance. Similar to what I have found here with my ~90 responses.
The results from our unscientific study here show that at 3 months you are 2.5x more likely to be wearing a pad if you had Robotic surgery. At one year, only Robotic patients were still wearing pads.
The good news is that at 3 months 67% are continent and at one year 91% are continent.
For my fellow three month leakers, 2/3 of us will be dry at one year. Don't give up.
I'll keep the posts going to collect more data.
Jeff
(You can click the Snapfish link in a previous posting to see the data plot.)

For the new guys.

Were you able to enter your information on the poll, page 1, at the top? Let me know if you are locked out and I will redo it.

Thanks,
Jeff

open, never leaked. Wore a pad home after catheter removed, it was dry, never wore one again. Now at 9 months.