How much longer?

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Tomorrow will be seven weeks since prostatectomy and 39 days since catheter was removed. Still going through 10 pads a day. Little if any improvement on incontinence seen. Going to PT for pelvic floor exercises and doing Kegels daily. Am I not being patient enough (like my wife says). Back to work last week and it is challenging having to change pads every 90 mins. Anybody been this far from surgery with no incontinence improvement?

 

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I was about 14-15 weeks until I started seeing real improvements. I’m now 17 weeks and only use 2 pads a day and they are not that wet anymore. Hang in there it will get better. I know it doesn’t seem like it now but I was in your shoes not that long ago and thought it would never end. I’m always around if you ever want to ask any questions.

 

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@Myron : Any reason to not just use a high capacity tape on diaper? Depending on what you use you could easily reduce your changes to just two or three a day. With a super premium diaper like a Northshore Supply MegaMax you could probably easily go 8-10 hours with no changes.

 

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@Myron I am almost to 6 weeks after Prostatectomy on Sept 24, 2020. I am using about 5 pullups day which would relate to about 15 pads. My urologist said look at our improvement week to week. I have marked the calendar with my usage. I went from 12 pullups at week 2 to 9 pullups at week 3 to 5 pullups at week 4.

I can understand how at work it is difficult. But as @Brendan stated, it gets better with time. Each person is different. But in the now we feel your pain and frustration. Know that it will get better in time and that time may be week 10 or 13 or 17. You are doing the Kegels - keep doing them. It may not seem like much improvement, but millimeter by millimeter it is getting better.

 

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I became frustrated with the guessing about improvements. I set my self on scheduled changes of pull-ups. I purchased a scale ($20) that weighed in grams.

I weigh the wet pull-up - subtract the weight of dry pull up and disposal bag.

I how have a very precise number. 1 ml of urine weights about 1 gram.

Since I’m a nerd, I post the daily total to an Excel spread sheet and produce a chart.

Running a trend line on the chart gives a real representation of improvement.

If you believe in projections, you can project the trend line to see wher it passes zero

I’m 10 weeks post catheter. I started this about 4 weeks post catheter.

I started averaging about 500 milliliters per day With spike over 700.

10 weeks out, I am averaging less than 200. My projected trend line hits zero in about another 4-5 weeks.

This process gives me visual hope.

 

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@Myron I wanted to check in with you from 2 weeks ago. How are you doing?

 

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Hello Thudson......no improvement...zero. Thanks for asking. MF

 

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@Myron You’ll get there my surgery was 20 weeks ago tomorrow and for the most part I’m dry and able to go to the toilet no problem. I know it feels like it will never get here but it will. I was angry and depressed for the first 12 weeks. Just hang in there.

 

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@digouro

I too am a bit of a geek, have done the same as you. I have also noticed that leakage for me is a function of loading and unloading the abdomen (twisting and bending). The other thing i have noticed is that wearing of tighter clothes seems to reduce the leakage. My question, is it good to wear tighter clothes to prevent leakage or wear looser clothes to eliminate the crutch?

Separate observation, when weighing the pads consider or note if you have been more or less sweaty (yard work in my case), this will add weight that is not leakage. There is no way to back this out, but the data point can be excluded.

 

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@digouro

I too am a bit of a geek, have done the same as you. I have also noticed that leakage for me is a function of loading and unloading the abdomen (twisting and bending). The other thing i have noticed is that wearing of tighter clothes seems to reduce the leakage. My question, is it good to wear tighter clothes to prevent leakage or wear looser clothes to eliminate the crutch?

Separate observation, when weighing the pads consider or note if you have been more or less sweaty (yard work in my case), this will add weight that is not leakage. There is no way to back this out, but the data point can be excluded.

 

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I find that about any kind of activity makes it worse.

I’ve thought about sweat; and agree it can add to weight. Don’t know ho to account for it. Some apparent improvement could be cooler temperatures; but no real way to know.

Went to my GP today - talked about my progress and showed her my chart.

She asked how erections were coming along. I told her I had not really started working on them yet. Didn’t see much reason if I was wet. Told her I was just about ready to get started. Told her next visit I’d have a chart... she laughed so hard she almost fell off her chair.