how to understand road to continence?

At this point, every time I get out of my recliner, I start to spurt.  By time I get to the bathroom, about half the urine is out; the other half comes out in a thin(?) stream.

At night, my bladder wakes me up 3-4 times; same process - spurting while walking to the bathroom.

I also experience a pretty constant 'drip'.

Is there anything else I can or should be doing?  Are the kegal excercises enough that (hopefully) one day they magically achieve their goal?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Hi Mike, and welcome.  When I lived in South Florida, the area which is now Weston was still part of the Everglades, on the west side of the canal which separated civilization from the swamp all the way up to PB county...things change.

Anyhow, good luck with your recovery journey.  I'm temped to repeat what Steve has written—to come back in 2 months—because he is basically correct.  The average full recovery after RP is around 4 months.  It seems like improvements happen s-l-o-w-l-y.  Because you are feeling every little 'squirt' every time you move, you hardly notice improvements on a day-to-day basis.

The Kegels are a great starting point for training your muscles for new uses.  They have been proven to accelerate the time required for full continence, so keep them up.  What you need to also start doing is forcing yourself to do the Kegel "clamp" every time you rise up from the sitting position.  With time, this will become sub-consciously natural, but for now you need to concentrate on doing the Kegel clamp with any physical exertion.  The exercises by themselves are a good starting point, but now start to apply them to your real-life situations.

Next time you are in to see your doctor, ask him when you will be "cleared" for some physical exercise ("core" exercises).  Typically, this will be 6-weeks after surgery.  Come back then and I'll give you some more exercises to accelerate recovery.

best wishes...