Anxiety Of Dealing With Post Treatment Recovery

I come here quite often looking for some answers and reassurance that what i'm going thru and feeling is actually part of post recovery for my treatment and not exclusive to me.

As the say the mind is a powerful thing while I understand we are all different and things affect each one of us differently there are the common factors associated with the recovery of Surgery / Brachytherapy / Radiation which are the top three treatment options.

The most common of Side Effects of all deal with urinary functions , Do you pee to much do you not pee at all, is your stream weak to strong do you pee a little or a lot. do we sleep , are we retaining are we emptying or not. all the things we PC struggle with .

As most who know my plight , I have had most of the urinary side effects affect me not only physically but mentally and I am realizing how powerful what I think is compared to what I feel. I am now three weeks post EBRT and 5 Months Post Brachytherapy . I have to admit all the advice I received here from all of you was be patient it will take time..

As of recent I have been seeing some improvement , my Dr gave me Oxybutynin and I think it has helped quite a bit , when I used to get up at night I had a hard time peeing now no more pain when I pee not to much dribbling but still feeling the need to go frequently , especially during the day about every Hr or so , I was always so scared I would get blocked and was always worried about retention as I didn't pee a lot , so in my mind there was so much confusion what's the difference between retention and frequency. I get some abdominal pain and the worries begin but im taking so many meds im sure they are irritating my system. so who know just trying to stay positive.

will I kind of trying to ay to myself as long as im peeing ill be ok. Now once my mind accepts all these things I think ill be better for it. I have made quite a number of good friends here and we all have anxiety over the urinary functions … and talk quite a bit about it the constant run to the toilet. Now I try to decided when to go and when to hold it for a bit longer. anyway I feel im making some positive strides and I was really bad im still in the woods but am not feeling as bad as I did ..

In short to all those who are dealing with Post Treatment Urinary Side Effects , being patient if possible is important so this will take time and I hope that we can all move beyond this and try to be a normal as we can.


John

Hang in there John - prayers sent for your recovery!

A mind is a powerful tool, sometimes negative and sometimes positive! Projecting negative outcomes is our enemy, we must try to stay in the moment and deal with what we have today, as tomorrow is not real. Sharing your thoughts and feelings is a great way to ground oneself in the moment. Be well! Denis

I know it's been rough for you. Just hoping that with treatment behind you now this will begin to get better. I'm pretty confident it will, but not sure how long it may take...

thanks Logoslidat , my medical team is well aware and tell me to be patient , it is emotionally a difficult roller coaster to deal with , but from what I'm told here they say it is the normal post treatment to have some of these urgency urinary issues. Friday im three weeks out of radiation there are places I have improved I don't have any pain when I pee ,and I don't worry about blockage as much as I used to, when I get up at night I don't have to walk around the house b4 I can go ,. before I would have to strain to start now its not that bad, and I can usually go … not a lot but I can go and get back in bed.

As I said my main issue now is having the urge to pee every Hr or so, sometimes I can go 2 hrs , so I'm trying to be patient and tell myself it will get better, sometimes I just try to hold it and wait a bit , im still not peeing a lot maybe 50 -100ml per go so ill just keep waiting..

if anyone else has had urgency issues post radiation how have you dealt with them , when im home I sometimes just go when I feel like going even when its just 20 min later, sometimes I pee and

today is a bad day I can pee again in 5 min its truly one day at a time not much but I do maybe im over thinking this .

Adding I realized today I had stopped eating chocolate a few weeks ago , and started back up yesterday , maybe this is why im all of a sudden peeing so much again ..

Bad urinary symptoms are a terrible thing and really affect you. I've been there, too. Have you cut out coffee, tea, and alcohol? And everything else enjoyable? I found that coffee, even decaf, drove my bladder crazy. But tea has been fine, thankfully. Once, before I discovered the evil affects of coffee, I was in the middle of teaching a class and had to run for the bathroom. More than a bit embarrassing.

John,

I too have the same urgency and need to go around every 15 min to half hour during the day. I will have an extremely urgent need to pee and when I go a small amount dribbles out. During the night I wake up every around every hour. My stream is intermittent but getting better. I really have to plan where the restrooms are going to be.

I know I have just started and I could have more SE come up.

Hang in there you are not alone

John

I am luckily retired and make sure that I have access to a restroom at all times. I try not to drink before bed and I always carry an extra pair of under wear. As for the out put I do not measure it (going to ask my MO).From the EBRT I also have an urgency for bowel movements.

I have my first meeting with my MO Tuesday. I am currently on Tamsulosin and was going to ask if there is another med that would work better. What meds are you on and how did they change them?

Sorry I could not be more help

Thanks for the response

HI Don , im on The Tamsulosin 2x a day and Finasteride 1x , the other option would be Rapaflo which is not an option for me as I get treated at the VA.... I have been improving but obviously not fast enough im on a 10 day trip leaving today so hopefully I can manage my RO gave me pads to wear in case of an emergency but the timesx I have worn one I have been unable to go in it , so I see your getting quite a bit of radiation , over a wide area … my emails is [email protected] if you wanna send a note . as we seam to have similar SE from the EBRT

John