sexual recovery

hi -

new to this or any other forum.  Had radical (nerve-sparing) surgery one year ago (dec2014) - so sign of sexual recovery.  Self stimulated through over the past year, Viagra occasionally, injections one time - ended up in the ER (dosage in the office did little, Dr. recommended increased dosage sent me to the ER).  looking for insight/comments/suggestions regarding ED recovery.

hey thanks for the reply. maybe there's hope. I'll be 54 next month. Glad you're getting there. My "use it" has been to sporadic over the past year. That, combined with some troubles pre surgery, have me fearing the worst.

My boyrfriend was 65 when he was diagnosed. 67 now. Had nerve sparring surgery. It took 2 years, but viagra works on it's own. Without pills, 50%. Prior to that we were using Trimix. Did have one ER experience, but eventually found the right dosage and we used that until things started waking up. Don"t loose hope.

I've been in similar situation, and right now I'm on bit of a roller coaster. In less than a week, I'll be 2 yrs post RP and about your age. Had good erections pre-op with Viagra (viagra was necessary mainly due to fairly potent cocktail of drugs for bipolar).

I use pump regularly to maintain length and penile tissue but never got more than "plump" from that. I was totally averse to injections (for obvious reasons), and at one year, I had horrible clinical experience with first injection. I had not so gentle PA come running across room and darn near killed me. I only got semi erect, so that made me stay completely away from trimix for another few months until I decided I had to try. Injections were painful and, while supportive, my wife and I weren't having sex much before surgery so it got difficult for me to get courage to try given limited success. Tried a few times on my own with little success. Finally went back to doc and he said my 15-18 units just wasn't enough.

Although I'm pretty much on my own with this thing, several weeks ago I started having maybe 80-90% with pump and manual stimulation (no relations w wife right now - whole other story), certainly enough to ********* standing up. Then they stopped! Decided to get back on trimix horse, popped 20 units in the other day and rock hard! I think I wasnt getting success w trimix because I wasn't injecting enough, wasn't injecting in right spot, and a combination of some natural recovery.

I've read a lot of guys come (no pun I tended) around at about two years, so there is hope. I was just thrilled the other day when the trimix worked and I could handle 20 units. It's hard (pun intended) to be patient. It wears you down and is difficult to compartmentalize. But keep hope. My ED doc has been mentioning implant for a year, but the risk/reward isn't there right now given I'm flying solo.

Keep hope. I think it'll come back.

The typical recovery time is 18 to 24 months. During surgery the nerves are traumatized and need time to heal. During this 18 to 24 month period, you need to have erections to keep the erectile tissue healthy - while you wait for the nerves to wake up. Medication (pills or injections) help you to have these erections.

Dr. Mulhall recommends that you have erections that are penetration hardness (60%) or better for 10 to 15 minutes 2 to 3 times a week. This will maximize your ability to recover your erections back to what they were prior to surgery.

The longer you go without erections after surgery, the more likely you are to suffer permanent erectile tissue damage, called atrophy. So keep at it and don’t give up hope.

-- Tigerfan

Hey Halbert. DON'T WORRY! Everyone's experience is different. Read through some stories because you'll find some guys that get erections almost as soon as the catheter is removed (maybe a tad extreme, but not much??).

The key point here is that those who do not recover as quickly are not necessarily impotent for life. It is very difficult to live without the ability to get an erection and the stories about recovering after two years are intended to encourage those who truly have a recovery after a longer period of healing. The nerve bundles around the prostate are like spider webs, and thus, the trauma to those bundles is different than a linear -type nerve healing.

The general advice is to use all the recovery methods simultaneously, but worrying and anxiety certainly won't help the process. I'm not ready to give up, even after two years, because there's quite a few stories out there that happened to reference the 2 yr. point as a bit of a magical time for those who ultimately recover.

My surgery (DaVinci Robotic) was in August. So far trimix is working for me (about .15), Cialis and Viagra did not. Semi-erections are starting to come on their own now, so hopefully this will continue and I may not have to use the Trimix. As with many guys I was concerned about injecting myself, but aside from injecting with too much one time, I have had no problems with the injections. The erection usually goes down after about an hour or so.

Hi

I have a similar story to some of the other posters. I am just about 14 months post RALP. For a long time nothing was happening. I used a VED but it was awkward. PDE5's did not help much but I would get somewhat of an erection at the very end of self stimulation. Then all of a sudden in November of 14 when I went back on 5mg/day of Cialis, I got a 90% erection. I was really surprised. SInce then I had a little setback with some hematuria and needed a cystoscopy so my liitle friend was in no mood for any stimulation but I hope to get on track. My Uro told me to keep truckin and it is possible to get improvement for up to 24 months for someone my age (64).

I'm 4.5 years out from nerve sparing surgery, no response for the first 3 months, used an Osbon vacuum to keep things healthy but both I and the wife found it awkward and not always satisfactory. Tried viagara at 6 months with pretty good success and at the one year mark was able to have enough firmness for penetration with no pills. After 2 years was almost back to normal but variable for firmness and after orgasm would shrink to nothing immediately. Kept improving as time went on and now at 4 + years since surgery I can say I'm 100% and enjoying sex as much as pre surgery...it was a long road but it slowly improved with each year. I strongly believe that using it as much as possible plays a big role, stay with it...hopefully at year 4 you'll look back and be writing your success story to someone else who is suffering.

R