Anyone have experience using Ditropan to control incontinence?

My friend (who had a robot assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy back in 2001 at the Cleveland Clinic) tells me he has had success with Ditropan for his incontinence.  He suggests I ask my doctor about it if my incontinence doesn't improve, but I'm sure sphincter strengthening is preferred over medication.  Any comments?

Greg

I used it heavily for 2 months after surgery because of being on a catheter for so long, it generally worked well for bladder spasms. There was a former poster on this site, from my state of SC, that was on ditropan patch's long term for the reason you asked. I remember him saying how well that helped him with that problem. You may want to ask about the patch version, some people, men and women, are on them longterm, as in years.

I am new to this, so forgive me if I don't do this right yet.
My surgery for prostatectomy was Tuesday last...June 9. I'm home with the Catheter on place and a Dr's visit tomorrow to remove staples. I'm a bit of an inventor (Architect by training) and wondered about improving the results for incontinency. (My brother is incontinent after 10 years, same surgery).

Here's an idea....(too late for me, but maybe for others)....My image of the catheter is a solid tube which one's urinary sphincter isn't able to close upon fully, to zero orifice. The sphincter gets used to not closing fully, leading to incontinence. I have a design for a novel catheter which allows full sphincter closure. What do you think?

I hope your problem resolves itself, so keep kegelling.

thanks James,
Yes this is all weird.
My design for a catheter is exactly like the foley catheter but soft so your muscles could work it. The hard part was trying to figure out how to thread a soft catheter in place, but that's not so hard after all.

I think you must be right anyway, that the sphincter should probably not be used a lot anyway as its all healing in there.

I have another week with the catheter in place, but each time now I bear down for a bowel movement, urine leaks fairly freely out around the outside of the catheter. I guess I will call my doctor, but so far I hear this is normal, what?

Thanks

I promise to post my info soon.

Yes, it's quite normal, however, the amount of leakage is usually directly related to the amount of straining you are doing when you move your bowels.  What's happening is when you strain, the balloon inside your bladder (that's on the other end of the foley catheter) is moving slightly out of position, which allows some of the urine to flow through the urethra as opposed to through the catheter.  In my case (see my thread "Greg's RALP" for my day-by-day post-surgery report) this also led to a burning sensation as the urine leaked out during a bowel movement, which, although not unusual, made for some very discomforting days.

What you need to do is load up on fiber, like prunes, so that you keep your bowel movement straining to a minimum.  Your doctor may have also advised you to take stool softeners each day - this is extremely important, as it is very easy to strain during a bowel movement, and the faster you go through it the better.  Good luck.

Greg