incontinece

Hello, kabog121, and welcome.
Recovery is gradual. You’ve been patient enough, it’s fair to have expected more progress by now. It’s a good sign, though, that you’re drier at night. That’s typically the first step. Also that you’re in pads and not diapers.
You don’t say, but I’ll assume you’re doing Kegel exercises. If your surgeon gave you instructions on how to do them, make sure you’re following them.
Many of us found physical therapy, with a therapist trained in male pelvic floor rehab, to be very helpful. If you haven’t done PT yet, you might want to explore that route.
Also, you should be doing a lot of walking.
A number of guys who were slow to recover continence started weighing their pads. That would allow you to track whether you’re still making progress, however incremental it may be, or if your recovery has truly stalled.
If you haven’t already brought your situation to the attention of your surgeon, I’d do that now. He knows your history and the details of your surgery, and may have some insight.

It can be gradual and may take a year till you've recovered as much as you're going to recover.

be patient, walk, do your Kegels, complain to your doctor, all actions you should take.

Andrew

Kegels everytime it pops into your head. You'll know your muscles are getting stronger if you can do it while walking with little effort.

Walk walk walk.

Drink MORE water. Are you drinking less in the afternoon? Ive had a few tiny leaks and each time it was in the afternoon when I hadnt drank in Couple of hours. Drink water throughout the day. You should be going to pee regularly. Its a bit of a hassle but your retraining your bladder to hold more and it works better if theres something in there. When you feel you need to pee your brain is making the connection to hold. This will happen more and more naturally until your doing it subconciously.

My theory is that the kegels begin to happen 'by themselves'. Even so I still do them when I think of them and will continue to into the future. Water consumption helps train this. Afterall women have only the pelvic floor. Working on health and fitness wont hurt either. Keep at it.

Thanks for all the info. I will try to drink more water and do more walking everyday. I know Im doing the Kegel correctly becasue when I peee, i can stop my mid steam urine at once but when I statrt walking that is when the dripping continues.
I will take note all your suggestions and be patient. I will keep everybody posted about my journey.

Thanks for your support and encouragement.

I'm in the same boat as you are in. I'm just coming up on 8 months post surgery and am still using pads like a toxic spill cleanup crew. I follow the typical incontinent recovery. Dry at night...beginning of the week is better than the latter...start to leak after lunch...tapers off around 9 pm. 3 Pads a day at best.

I walk 1-1.5 miles 5/7 days of the week on average and drink about 20-30 oz of water a day and do my kegels when I remember. The Uro calls it "stress incontinence" but I think he could just leave out the "stress" part. I'll sometimes leak when I'm just standing talking to someone. The worst is when driving home after work just sitting in my car. Again, that's near the end of the week so M-W is bearable.

I do PT for this and I highly recommend it. It's kinda funny how we determine what spend money on but I'd pay out of my pocket for PT if I had too. I highly recommend it.

Based on comments by others, I do not think Urologist spend enough time on QOL (incontinence and ED) before surgery. "Life" is a common word in this discussion. I have mixed emotions about this very topic so sorry if I seem a little put-off. You have to be clear about your own expectations on recovery. Do what you can and deal with the rest.

Tiger88 said...

....Based on comments by others, I do not think Urologist spend enough time on QOL (incontinence and ED) before surgery. "Life" is a common word in this discussion. I have mixed emotions about this very topic so sorry if I seem a little put-off. You have to be clear about your own expectations on recovery. Do what you can and deal with the rest.

Based on my many experiences, I couldn’t agree more, Jerry. It seems most of them don’t know, don’t care or just think it’s beneath them. Mostly we get lip service. Uro’s At large centers, who supposedly specialize in side effects, can be disappointing and are often the least experienced, bottom of the pecking order, physicians.

Radiation oncologists seem to be bit better, but the jury, for me, is still out. A new, comprehensive discussion of radiation side effects would be helpful.

We gotta do our own research, and share with each other!