Today I am 10 weeks post-op and I wanted to give a breif update (for details of my surgery see my initial post here:
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=2761907)
In terms of continence, while there is still day-to-day variability, I am now down to a single pad most days (sometimes barely needed) and none at night. I leaked badly the first week and then had significant progress the next two weeks and then plateaued at 3-4 pads per day for the next several weeks. At the suggestion of my local uro I began biofeedback PT at six weeks and although I have not done many of the suggested exercises besides Kegals and stretching I had a burst of improvement the last couple weeks. I’m not sure how much of this is attributable to the biofeedback, Kegals, walking, normal healing, or whatever, but in any event I’m very pleased with how its progressed.
On the potency front, I starting to see some partial but encouraging response at 6 weeks when I started 10mg Cialis q3d. I found things worked much better when standing or using a constriction ring. The response improved rapidly over the last couple weeks and this past weekend with 20mg Cialis and using a constriction band I had an excellent result and some great sex!
So the nerves are suddenly really coming around. I'm sure my relative youth and good health have a lot to do with it, but I still think this rapid recovery is somewhat remarkable especially given that the nerve sparing on the right side was only partial due to the palpable tumor on that side. I have to think that the 300mg Irbesartan I am taking daily since my operation has played a significant role in this. For those who recently had or soon will be having RP, this is something to consider with seemingly very little downside:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23030689As upright posture / constriction ring have a marked effect, it seems that some venous leakage is part of the picture for me. From what I have read it sounds like venous leakage is a irreversible condition but one that would be unusual to manifest as a side effect of RP so soon post-op -- especially in patient having successful nerve sparing and doing rehab. So I am hoping it may be a relatively slight condition that actually existed pre-operatively and that will not be sufficient to cause problems once the nerves and blood supply fully recover. My surgeon says this venous leakage is does not portend negatively for me and he expects a return to my preoperative performance over the long term.