Nighttime urge to urinate?

RP plus 11 days.  4 days post catheter.

I wake up during the night with the urge to urinate.  I get up and take care of business, but the urge never goes away.  I'll get up a second or third time thinking I need to go, and get very little output.  Yet, the urge remains, often until morning after I get out of bed.  My guess is the morning physical activity helps eleviate this feeling.

I think I read where others have experienced this.  My assumption is the plumbing's been beat up and this will gradually dissipate on it's own.  Is this a valid assumption?  Any suggestions on dealing with this in the interim?

I had the same problem until last week. Now I seem to be back to years ago normal. Last night I slept from 10PM to 4:40 AM. I never slept that long for years before the surgery.

Mm know the feeling.

You are very soon after surgery and removal of catheter.

Can't repeat it often enough: it will take time to get better.
And don't be deceived by the small scars on the outside when you have da Vinci surgery - on the inside things get really messed about so it takes ages for them to heal recover etc. The swelling caused by the trauma may for instance press against the nerves that detect pressure.

You may want to alter the time of day you drink: so no more late night beers in front of the tv.
you may also end up removing certain types of drink from your diet: the drinks that tickle/irritate the bladder: soda, alcohol, citrus juices, caffeine etc. A while back a lot of us tried drinking green tea and camomile tea to try and calm things down.

Alf

Thanks everyone for your replies. My wife too keeps telling me it will take time for all of this to heal. This is however my first experience with this stuff. Thankfully the clock is ticking and I feel better with each passing day.

Hi there,
Im visiting my father after post op and he is in a lot of pain when he urinates. He had surgery on the 17th of Dec, and Dr said everything went spectacular. He was taking prescribed UTI medication for his pain, and was doing well. Once the dosage was done, he started with pain again.

Ive researched a lot and know someone that works with people with these kinds of post op problems. She is a physical therapist at this place: http://www.beyondbasicsphysicaltherapy.com/pelvic-pain-men.shtml#post-prostate and she has given me a lot of info regarding this. I know that urgency is your main concern in this forum, but do any of you still experience pain upon urinating? and if so, what suggestions can you give me for this?

Anything will help. Im so thankful for the surgery he has gone thru to treat the cancer, but so sad to see him go thru this pain. And I commend you all for being so strong and wish you all the best.

Thanks so much.

Pocketman, don't you know you should listen to your wife, in the end they are almost always right. The urge you feel could be mild bladder spasms plus you now have a new female style urinary system. You may know this already, they removed your internal sphincter (which females don't have) and this sphincter holds urine in the bladder till the bladder feels somewhat full (you don't feel this) and this internal sphincter, which you have not conscious control of, begins to open allowing the pressure in the bladder to be felt by you external sphincter, the one you still have, giving you the urge to urinate. In the operation they connected the bladder neck directly to your external sphincter.
So there is a lot different, the foley can cause bladder spasms, no more man sphincter, bladder connected to the unisex sphincter, plus gods knows what is different now. So relax and get in touch with your new femine plumbing, as others and your wife said "this too will pass". I hope that ,other than the urge problem, you are feeling well.
Ron

Thanks for the update, glad things adapted and settled down. That's usually the case, considering the amount of slicing, dicing and stitching done on us.

I have been getting up 2-4 times a night ever since RP in 2008. I have no trouble going, emptying completly and can get back to sleep immediately. I say 2-4 times because it varies depending on how much liquid I consumed in the evening, even at dinner. Ioften have one or two cocktails before dinner so that tends to aggrevate the situation. Like everyone says, caffiene and alcohol are not friends of the bladder.

I had hoped that this would change but it has not. It may be just a habit and a somewhat shrunken bladder. I can pee as much as 300 ml if I let the bladder get full during the day so I don't think it is shrunk all that much. I think it may have something to do with the nerves in the urinary track. When I get some volume backed up I get that relatively small urge and that is enough to wake me up.

I have found that if I take an Advil PM or Sominex (same ingredient) I can go about three hours before waking up. This stuff is not supposed to be habit forming so I do it pretty regulary especially if I have had an alcoholic drink in the evening.

Anyway, I find this to be no big deal and I still get a good nights sleep.

right after surgery the bladder wall is thick and the bladder that used to be accustomed to high volumes and high pressure is now only capable of low volumes and low pressure so.....you will feel the urge more often and less volume. Magnesium supplement of 250mg once a day will relax the bladder wall and ease this sensation and help return normal bladder function and control much faster than without it! try it out...cant hurt and can only help..magnesium may cause loose stool for the first few doses...not diarhea, just loose stool because it is a smooth muscle relaxer....