Incontinence question

Hi tmichael

You're 6 weeks out, so keep doing what you're doing and be patient. I know at that point I was getting pretty frustrated and wondering when and if continence would ever return. Then at about 8 weeks, things changed pretty rapidly and I dried up. I've been almost totally continent since then.

Walk and get as much exercise as you can. I think that will also strengthen your pelvic floor muscles

Keep the faith!!

Hang in there, things will improve.

There is a rule of thumb for recovery of continence after RP. It's all about twos out of threes. It goes that two out of three guys will be dry after three months. Of the remaining third, two out of three of them will be dry after one year. The remaining one guy in nine will need to talk to his doctor about what to do next (slings and artificial sphincters). Judging by the results men describe here that seems to be fairly close.

The problem with that rule is the impression it gives that men need to simply wait and see during the year after surgery. There are things you can do that may help, and even if they are ultimately unsuccessful they give the man something to do while he waits.

You are already doing the first thing to try. Kegals do help. The regimen your doctors laid out for you seems about right. Its early days for you. Keep doing your kegels and hope for the best ... for a couple of months ... then ask your doctor to refer you to a physical therapist who works with men who have lingering incontinence after surgery. The therapist will coach you to make sure you are doing your kegel exercises right. They use a machine something like an EKG that measures the contractions of your pelvic floor muscles. Not only does that tell you if you are working the right muscles but it also gives you a week-over-week numeric measurement of your progress. This lets you see improvement even if you haven't gotten to the point yet where you stop leaking.

Good luck. Work hard at those kegels and be patient. But not too patient.

Its still early. Stick with the kegals, and try to be patient. Its frustrating no doubt.

I think you are on a track similar to mine. For a while it seemed like there was no improvement, but then there was a period of rapid improvement and much dryer pads. Its now five months since surgery for me, and I'm almost completely dry. Your night time experience is normal, I think. Be patient.

You and I are the same age, I had my RALP on 12/30/2016 so I'm a couple of weeks ahead of you.

We sound very similar though in our incontinence. My 30 day appointment with the Dr I was going through the same number of pads. I got to the point that sitting I would do well, and I could hold it pretty well getting up and going to the bathroom. Standing it seemed like I leaked non-stop. At the first appointment the Dr. asked if I could stop my pee stream, and re-start it. I initially misunderstood his PA, I thought she told me not to do that. I can in fact stop and start, so that made me feel better that things would get better over time. I also initially got lazy and would sit down to pee all the time. Things got better when I would stand to pee more, I also discovered my standing Kegels were harder/weaker than my sitting Kegels.

Now I do well at night, do well sitting, and do better standing and moving around, I still leak, but am down to 3-4 pads and those aren't as saturated as I was with the 7-8 pads.

If I sneeze, cough, or pass gas I still leak, but I'm learning to be proactive and try to consciously hold it before I do any one of those. And you learn not to hold a sneeze in, that is way worse than just letting it out.

It's hard not to get frustrated, hang in there, and remember why you are on this path, we made a choice to be cancer free, and this is part of the recovery associated with that.

ETA: You didn't really state what your physical activity is, moving is good, walking, exercising, whatever gets you moving, try to do it.

I work out 5-6 times a week, from lifting to HIIT, the incontinence makes it a little different. I wear a Depends Brief with compression shorts on top of it, and workout shorts on top of that. Some days when I am doing dead lifts, squats, and especially crunches I leak a lot. I've never had an issue with the Brief not catching it all. So don't let the incontinence keep you from doing what you want to do.

One more thing I thought about. There is a change in behavior we have to make. We are used to feeling the urge to pee, and then going to pee, we've done this for most of our life. While we are in this phase we need to consciously go pee more often. If I catch myself leaking I will go pee, generally I have some backed up. This helps with the leaking, get it out all at once versus just leaking it out. It's a pain as you are hitting the bathroom pretty often, but I think it helps.

Post Edited (sks61) : 2/26/2017 8:59:19 AM (GMT-7)