artificial sphincter/ sling

jersycity,

My condition was similar to yours. The leakage after 18 moths had decreased to minimal, but varied. Some days, i wouldn't need a pad but other days required a light one, especially during workouts. It was a situation that I was living with but I had started ED therapy with injections and I leaked urine when I was able to achieve an erection with injections. I did some research and found that the sling had the potential to reduce or eliminate that problem, so I elected to try it. I had the Advance Urinary Sling installed by Dr. Stone at UC Davis in Sacramento and the results were successful in that I no longer leak urine during erections. The drawbacks are a bit more difficulty in urinating...the stream is not as strong as the urethra is somewhat squeezed by the sling, but this is not a big deal. However, for some reason, I find that I need to pay extra attention to draining Willy after urination or I will dribble a few drops when he goes back in the pants. Not much different than before my RP, but I didn't have that issue after the RP and before the sling.

All in all, I would easily do it again. Your leakage is low enough where you should be a good candidate for the sling procedure.

What does your urologist say?

jerseycity,

Watch this video if you want to know more about the procedure:

http://www.orlive.com/sentara-profile/videos/incontinence-surgery-the-male-sling

Hello jerseycity,

My situation was much like yours. I had an open prostatectomy 10 years ago with no radiation. I required 1-2 pads per day until last July at which time I consented to sling surgery.

I received detailed information and consented to an AdVance or AdVance type male sling. To my horror, the urologist doing the surgery implanted a Coloplast Virtue male sling instead of the device that I had consented to. The Virtue sling caused intolerable pain 24/7 and worsened my incontinence from 1-2 pads to 4-5 pads per day.

The pain was so horrible that I had the Virtue sling surgically removed at The Cleveland Clinic approximately one month ago. The specialist at The Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Kenneth Angermeier, implanted a American Medical System AdVance male sling before completing this 3 1/2 hour procedure.

Although I still experience considerable pain from the "removal" surgery, I am 100% dry with the AdVance sling. It is great to be completely dry after 10 years of wearing pads.

If you are considering sling surgery, I would encourage you to carefully research your choice of slings and doctors. A good place to start is to Google: FDA / MAUDE Adverse Event Report

Under Brand Name, type: AdVance Virtue and InVance one per report.

Choose 25 reports per page.

It is also meaningful to consider the yearly number of specific model implants compared the the number of reported MAUDE injurious adverse events. For example, I have reason to believe approximately 9000+ AdVance male slings were implanted in 2009. The AdVance sling had nine (9) adverse event reports for 2009 ending 31 DEC 2009. Using these numbers, their implant to injury ratio would be approximately 1000:1.

It is more difficult to estimate the total number of Coloplast implants for 2009 since they refuse to disclose this information. They do disclose that they were hoping for 120 volunteers for their ongoing Clinical Trials. So if they succeeded in obtaining 120 Clinical Trial volunteers and another 90 implants were done outside Clinical Trials in 2009, their estimated total would be 210 implants for 2009. Considering their 21 MAUDE adverse event reports for 2009 (not including November and December due to reporting lag) their estimated current ratio would be approximately 10:1.

When I look at this comparison, I am not surprised that I was one of the unlucky ones that suffered so much with the Coloplast Virtue sling.

I would be interested in hearing from others that have suffered unreasonable or intolerable pain following sling implant surgery. My email address is: [email protected]

Best wishes,

John




I

I had a Radical Prosectamy in Feb 05.  Never had a leak but the ED hung around. In Nov 07 I was in a motorcycle wreck and broke my back. Now I lost alot of feeling in my groin and lost control of my bladder.  My doctor felt the Advance Sling would fix my problem so I went along with it and went ahead and did a penile implant at the same time.  That was Oct 13th 09 and I just left the doctors office today where I scheduled another surgery to do the artificial sphincter.  In my case the advanced sling did not help.  And for reference I am very dissatisfied with the penile implant.  I will be looking for another doctor to look into either taking it out or trying another one.  I will not use the same doctor in that situation.  When I explained my complaint to him he just shrugged me off and said it was enough for intercourse and that was better than before.