Sphincters, Kegels and Urinary Control

I recently posted this in response to another thread. At the recommendation of another member I am starting a new thread to make the info a little easier to find and of course to open it for discussion. If I am off base with this info I am sure that my experienced brothers here at HW will be sure to straighten me out. After all, what do I know? I have only been dealing with PCa for barely over 3 months and certainly one of the lessor experienced here.

To the newly arrived researching prostate cancer information and to those that are recovering from whatever alternative they selected to address, I offer the following about Kegels and sphincters.

I was talking with my dr's follow up nurse a couple of days ago about when I should resume Kegel training. She told me that it had been long enough and I should continue. I am 17 days post surgery.

Then she added something I had not heard nor understood before now.

Prior to surgery we have 2 sphincters, one is involuntary and the other is voluntary. The involuntary one is contained within the prostate. It is this one that keeps urine from flowing out with ejaculate, thus killing sperm. And the one that men know about that makes it difficult to go when you have an erection. The other is the voluntary, the one we control. This is the one that we use to keep from going until we make it to the john. The one we use to squirt those last few drops out when we are done. This is the one that we have left after some PCa treatments. By exercising it and making it stronger (but not overdoing it to the point of weakness) we train it to stay in a more flexed and controlled position. Thus stopping flow when we don't want it to. By having it flexed and shutting off, when we want to go we voluntarily tell it to relax and let it fly.

This made a world of sense to me. Now it may have been her way of telling me it is a mind over matter thing or she was just giving me something to do while nature healed me. But it just makes too much sense. We go through life with our body telling us things but a lot of the time we just don't listen. It just comes natural.

I mean, how many of us didn't actually know that we had two sphincters to control urine flow in the first place? I'll raise my hand, I certainly did not. Just knew there was something that I could do to start and stop some things and other times when it just stopped on it's own.

Don't know if this helps, but just thought I would contribute it.

Good luck and God Bless,

Sonny

My dr told me no kegels right away because I did not have a foley, I had an SP. They didn't want me squeezing the area where there was no support, just stitches healing. Made sense to me. Besides I tried once and it hurt like crazy.


Sonny

Diane,

Yes I know. Like everyone that faces some form of treatment for PCA, my main worry about the cancer was the IC.

Fortunately (and I knock on wood everyday) for me it has not been an issue. I hope and pray that it never is.

Thank you for the feedback,

Sonny