Alf is using pads again.

Not really good news, or is it?

I had liked to think that I could describe myself as continent again, but about ten days ago I started wearing very small pads again (I’ve opted for cheap sanitary towels that cost about 45eurocents for 20, as opposed to the cheapest manpads which cost about 50cts each).
The reason for my rethink/reassessment is that I still get a lot of very small dribbles each day; it was only about half a teaspoonful five or six times a day, but I was getting fed up with the endless dashing to the bathroom to prevent a damp patch appearing on my clothes, (and more importantly the fear of having a visible dribble when somewhere public).
There is also a very strange difference between night and day. At night my bladder is almost back to being like it was ten years ago. I stay dry; get up once for a pee and also bizarrely I wake up most morning with a (partial) erection. Yet in the day time I feel like I am back where I was in the weeks after my catheter came out when I was wondering if it is going to be okay to try going pad-free.
I also feel like my bladder fills in two phases. I usually feel like I need a pee about 45 minutes after the previous time I peed, but if I am at home and can sit quietly and work or read, then I can usually last for perhaps as long as another hour before I actually have to pee. If I am busy outside though I just feel like there is nothing I can do to stop it and have to make a dash for the nearest relief, or more often I am forced to plan what I do in advance to avoid getting in such a situation.
I guess it’s stress incontinence, so I must stand up too frequently or sneeze a lot, or do think too suddenly etc. I was though warned before surgery that I was likely to suffer from stress incontinence for the rest of my life. And though it sounds a bit like an over-active bladder I think the fault may lie with the over-active bowel next door to the bladder: over active thanks to the SRT so that assorted sphincters and muscles in the area never take much of a break. My bowels though do at least stay inert at night.

Opting for using pads once more sounds like a setback, or giving up, and in a way it clearly is, but with a pad in I feel dry, and that is a good feeling. And often I am dry. Also I feel like I am much more in control. For example yesterday I had a meeting with my attorney, but didn't need to ask to use the bathroom when I got to her office, nor did I have to leave the meeting to pee, nor head for the bathroom when we were finished. Weirdly I was dry for about twice as long as I would have been last month. (I didn’t push it to the limit though, so I did decide to call in at City Hall on the way home and use the men's room.)

It kind of makes me realise what they are getting at with those adverts for ladies that show a slim smiling blond in white jeans riding a horse because she feels so good and has so much confidence.

Alf

Alf,

Seeing as we are about the same "time on the path", I guess comparison is valid.

My pad use went from one per day pre-RT, to three pre-day post-RT, then slowly got better (back to one most days) over the following year. But the last eight months or so I have been backsliding. Now I am back at three probably 25% of the time.

My uro credits the long term effects of RT.