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Regaining continence

User
Posted 01 Oct 2017 at 09:12
Hello everyone,

My husband had Da Vinci surgery on September 11th following diagnosis in June with a Gleason score of 7 (3+4). He is 49. The surgery was very successful with minimal pain afterwards and biopsy results showing it had not spread to the margins and so not spread which has been a huge relief.

He started with a physiotherapist at the hospital last week and is doing Kegal exercises as directed. He is down to one slim pad during the day but the problems with continence are really at night. He is getting through one or two of the larger pads at night, sometimes leaking through them. He says that he is not waking up during the night with the feeling of needing the toilet. What is a way of improving awareness of the urge at night. He is doing so well during the day but I can tell he is pretty demoralised. I know it's very early days post op. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks all.

P.S. He has started drinking alcohol a bit again, could this be contributing to the night issues?

User
Posted 01 Oct 2017 at 13:32
3 weeks post op is realy no time atall its a realy slow process but things will get better took me 3 months to get pad free 2 years down the line and ive just done 6 weeks salvage rt so doing the incontinance thing all over again it does get you down but believe me it gets better
User
Posted 01 Oct 2017 at 17:22

It is probably the alcohol - he is having to relearn his bladder control as he did when he was a toddler; it takes quite a lot of concentration and booze either puts him into too deep a sleep or just blurs the messages from bladder to brain. John's op was over 7 years ago and he was continent very quickly afterwards but has never really been able to drink beer since.

I am surprised that he wasn't advised to avoid alcohol - it should have been in his information pack.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

User
Posted 05 Oct 2017 at 00:02

Hi I can answer your question. I am now at day 250 post op and have a daily record of every detail that may or may not impact on my continence / incontinence. Your husband's starting point and my starting point appears very similar. I also (pre op and post op) LIKE a 'nightcap' and refuse to give it up. . . . In short I can tell you that the 'control' muscles get stronger over time (regardless of 'exercise') and one learns to manage and by manage I mean, for example, I give my kidneys at least an hour after the last drink to do what they do before I get into bed. I have learned how and what my body (kidneys) do and now I wear a pad at night just one night a weak (the one night that I have a serious drink) and on that night I sleep sitting up because I know 1 hour after getting into bed I will need to go. Hope that helps?

 
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