Christmas Day Incontinence

What a great attitude sixfoot.
Glad you had a great Christmas with family.
You were brave cooking for 11 !

Not a normal day for you, therefore no worry about apparently taking moving backwards in your control and recovery.

I can only speak from experience so I hope that this will help you, but as you get more tired your control will need to be more often "thought of".  You probably go through most days not even thinking or worrying about control?  And you probably go through the day with bouts of being seated, and standing up and moving about?  All of which exercises and flexes the muscles.  A day of standing up with the constant gravity will probably induce leaks. 

A day on my feet is more likely to get me leaking, and when I am really tired, leaking unless I catch the first pulse of the urethra and can stop the second pulse occurring and get to a loo.  

Glad you had a good time SF2.  All in all you are doing really well with many aspects of your recovery at this time. ;-)

ATB

Dave

I think I may be a couple months behind you in terms of Op date etc.... ( mine was June 12th 2014 ) 
I made a significant improvement  just before Christmas ( using 2 pads per day on average )

Like you, these last 2 months I seem to have come to a standstill with no further improvement at all....


I do my PFE's daily and I have been told that my muscles are strong, so I can only assume that my external sphincter muscle has not yet  fully recovered, or maybe  it was necessary to remove part of that muscle in order to ensure the PCa was completely removed? 

Doing some research on Dr Google I've found that some medics say that it can take 12 to 18 months before full continence returns for some people.

It does get me down at times  not making the progress I had hoped for, but I shall keep plugging away in the hope that things will improve in the future.
As long as my PSA stays at <0.01 I will be happy..

Best Wishes 
Luther

It will improve. Mine did in the space of a couple of days. I just suddenly realised that the pad simply didn't get wet/stained over a whole day, same next day and the next so I simply stopped using them.

Steve

Good news then sixfoottwo, well done. I to suddenly found that I didn't need the pads over the space of a couple of days, just suddenly seemed to stop. Whilst I can go most of the night with only one or two visits to the bathroom, the daytime is still every hour and a half, two hours tops depending on how much I have to drink. I'm also ok so long as I can get to the loo within a short space of time.

Still waiting for an invite back for the three month PSA test and post op consultation, hopefully not too long though.

Keep up the good work, perseverance undoubtedly will pay off.

Like you, I am still in the frustrated camp. I had my op on March 1st 2014, now just a year past and I am still wearing one pad per day. I don't wear one during the night and have never done so since a week or so after catheter removal. The daily pads have reduced from five to three to two, and I have been using only one for some time now. Just a couple of days of hardly any mark, then next day results in more leakage.

I am fine when sitting down and I mainly get leakage after standing a lot and particularly late in the day and evening.

Usually I can prevent a leak when I cough or sneeze, unless it catches me by surprise. I have started weighing a wrapped up used pad and find it varies between 4 and 20 grammes more than an unused pad, indicating, I think, a leakage of anything between 4 and 20 ml per day. I usually do my PFE in the morning while walking for a paper and find that they actually cause some leakage when tensioning/relaxing the muscle as the urethra is being squeazed/relaxed, a sort of syphon/pump action I guess.

Like you I hope it clears up soon.

My PSA has never been undetectable unfortunately. The last one in December was 0.16 and has risen from its nadir of 0.107 in June.

Consultant is monitoring every 4 months with a view to salvage RT if it gets to 0.2. I hope to be completely dry before that though, as I understand the RT can cause a stricture (whatever that is) and I could need to wear a pad permanently.