Posted 10/24/2013 3:16 AM (GMT 0)
I had a follow-up appointment with my local urologist yesterday, which was exactly 21 weeks post-op, so I thought I'd post a brief update...
This time my PSA was actually undetectable (i.e. <0.01) vs. the 0.01 with no less than sign (which I still suspect may have been a transcription error) that I got at 6 weeks. I really didn't have anxiety about this given my post-op pathology, but it was nice to see a true undetectable this time. I asked my urologist why the ultrasensitive test and he said that the lab has standardized on only doing this one assay for efficiency. He says he doesn't want to check it again for one year.
On the continence front, I ditched the pads a couple weeks ago. I may have an occasional very small leak if I move a certain way or sneeze and I do tend to leak a bit while sitting around in the eve perhaps from fatigue or relaxation but mostly I am doing pretty well. A while back I cut way back on the Kegels (which I think I may have been overdoing for a while) but made a better effort to trying to walk a couple miles almost every day, which I think has helped. Then one weekend I figured I would just skip the pad and did pretty well. After a couple such weekends I was confident enough to start going to the office without the pads and have been fine.
In terms of ED, this also continues to gradually improve. I have been having sex successfully with Cialis and constriction band since 9 weeks post-op. My erections without Cialis are slowly improving and I find that need less Cialis for sex. Despite that success, I did also decide about a month ago to try Edex injections and found them to be a good option when I want 100% high quality result without having to use the constriction band or restrict positions to an upright posture. I'm doing this about half the time now as an alternative to the Cialis and am very pleased.