Effect of Coffee

For the first few months after my surgery I also avoided all forms of caffeine to include coffee. But over the last few months I have reverted back to drinking more coffee. about 2-3 cups a day on average. I have not noticed any increase in my urges to pee. I wouldn't say there is no added effect but nothing that stands out to me.

It is, I think, my only vice that I have returned to see my diagnosis :)

Mike

I drink decaf only. But even so, I get quick urges to go after drinking. I think in my case it is due to the volume of coffee (3 or 4 cups) and the reduced bladder size since surgery.

After surgery I went 6 weeks without it, but once I went back on coffee I didn't notice any negative effect.

This summer my wife gradually weaned us off caffeine. She had been having trouble sleeping, even though she only drinks it in the morning. Her doctor recommended going decaffeinated and it did help her sleep better.

I decided to along with her so we wouldn't need to make two pots of coffee in the morning. I'm over the addiction now but I really miss that feeling you get when first smell the coffee brewing in the morning, and that first sip. <sigh> Now it's just a hot drink I have in the morning with my breakfast.

I do still have the occasional cup when I can get a really good coffee.

Over time I went to 1 cup a day, then 2. I have seen that my daily pad use is slipping up, from 1-3 per day after ART to 2-3 per day now. I definitely have more leaks now.

My PT nurse made the observation that caffeine was not good, but the acids in coffee were worse for the bladder than caffeine, so coffee should be avoided, caf or decaf. I just need it to stay awake these days.

My PT nurse also identified the acid in coffee as the problem, not so much the caffeine. I told her that caffeine was my much-needed antidepressant of choice these days and she suggested switching to strong tea, which does not acidify the urine. So I am trying to switch to tea for my self-medication requirements and to (mostly) resist the siren song of the office coffee urn.

On the other hand, there is this recent scholarly paper that shows that coffee appears to reduce the risk of developing aggressive prostate cancer:

www.nutritionj.com/content/11/1/42

So maybe I didn't drink enough of it before.

Jeff: I am jealous. I don't think I ever produced as much as 500ml at any time in my life. I never took measurements before PCa, but I doubt my bladder ever held more than 250-500ml. I have rarely been able to go for more than 2 hours without a pee my whole life, and always had to think about where there was a bathroom etc, so having to go more frequently these days is perhaps not such a big deal for me.

As for acidic urine due to things like coffee, if I remember right then acidic urine helps stop you from getting UTIs, so that may be something to take into account.
I only drink 3 mugs of coffee a day, the rest of my fluid intake is tea, juice, milk water. The fact that I managed okay after drinking fresh coffee on one occasion does not mean I am planning to start drinking ten cups of fresh coffee a day. I will simply bear in mind that I can probably get away wtih drinking it occasionally.

Alf

I honestly don't know if it has any effect on my leakage, because I refused point blank to stop drinking it.

Within a year or so (prior) of "the whole prostate thing" I decided to see if there was a shred of truth to all the supposed benefits of going off caffeine after 30-odd years. So, I went through all the various withdrawal symptoms and waited. Nirvana and energy throughout the day failed to arrive. After about two months of that, still feeling the entire day like my brain hadn't turned on yet, but long past the headaches, etc. of physical withdrawal, I said the heck with it and brewed a pot of coffee. I haven't looked back.

Having that experience fresh in mind, when asked to discontinue coffee post-surgery I uttered one of the less polite variants of "heck no." I have other experiences both direct and otherwise that the fluid restriction some advocate is a bad idea for me (at least) and perhaps others. Passing out from dehydration and passing a kidney stone are both unpleasant things...so I drink a lot of water, too. I urinated a lot before surgery, I urinate a lot now. I'm "almost but not quite" dry (one pad lasts several days, and tends to be changed more for sanitation than soaking) at a bit over a year - I have doubts that the misery of not having my coffee would have made any difference, and I'm not planning to experiment with it.

I leaked about 2 pads a day and slowly went up to 4 pads a day, I cut out decaf coffee and a flavoured juice drink that conatained aspartame. My leakage returned to 2 pads a day within a week...not sure if it was the coffee or aspartame.

r