Life after non nerve sparing rdp

Hi and thank you for reply very much appreciated. No problems prior to opp with internal hemmoroids. He was sent for a colonoscopy two weeks ago and the chap who performed it said its very common after robotic surgery to get hemmoroids. Been on softners since the opp so not straining. Had a further ct scan /blue dye to see if fluid was collecting/not draining ,  but that was fine. So the nurse said its nerve damage and should heal overtime. No problems with waterworks. Its just finding away to deal with hip pains and the frustration of not being able to walk far. Hopefully our sense of humour will continue to carry us through.

Thanks for reply. We dont know how many lymph nodes have gone,  never been told. At the six week check up post opp we was told the  cancer was agressive type so non nerve sparing performed. The good news was PSA very low, but due to having come through the prostate wall and having positive margins highly recomend hr and radio. The hip pains and dead legs have been present since the op prior to hr. But we will now be looking up about lymphodema, so thanks very much about that.

Hi Chris 

We don’t know how many lymph nodes have been removed,  it’s a question we will ask on our next visit. They only said ”we had to take everything”. One nurse said because the lymph nodes are so close to the hip joins damage is unavoidable, and it could take up to 2 years to recover,  lets hope not.

The study explored recovery in the absence of mechanical or chemical assistance, making the 13% a remarkable figure in the context of the prevailing lay understanding. That any such recovery is impossible is an accepted and oft repeated ’fact’ on these pages.

This is one of the first studies that has looked at EFR in the era of robotic prostatectomy, so maybe that has some bearing.

That’s a huge assumption, and one unsupported by any study or professional opinion i’ve seen. Surely if that was the logical explanation we’d find some reference to it in the studies that do exist? 

I put that same theory (bodged procedure) to my own urologist, who replied ”so the pathologist is in on it too?”  

The point about robotic surgery is that all the current statistics show almost identical outcomes between robotic and open surgery. This in the context of the open surgery technique being at its perfected best, having been around for decades, whilst robotic surgery is new and developing. The statistics for robotic surgery success will include all the mistakes and dead-ends that  come from empirical early learning. If the techniques provide neck and neck results now, it follows that once the robotic technique is perfected as the open one is now, the outcomes will significantly diverge. 

My left leg was affected by the RP operation, nerve damage, the Obdurator nerve apparently is at risk of damage when removing lymph nodes

my symptoms were weakness and loss of response in one leg, however this cleared uo completely after a few months