 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Prostate Cancer / February 2004Incontinent
When my friend was diagnosed last summer with prostate cancer and we found this newsgroup to be very helpful and informative and we both learned a lot. Really appreciate your help. His surgery was mid-July 2003 and it's really starting to wear on him that he's still having leakage problems. The physician assistant suggested he drink less water and see if that helps. Is he being overly concerned with the leakage problem or is this "normal"? I realize that everybody heals differently but ..... He tells me that he still doesn't feel the urge to urinate, but when he stands up he leaks, so he goes to the bathroom and the pad is always damp. Any suggestions, advice or should he just be more patient? Thanks again for your help. Joy The PA should check his/her head area for gray matter. DRINK WATER. Not drinking water is not the fix. Talk to the doc for starters. Keegels, anyone? John. > When my friend was diagnosed last summer with prostate cancer and we found > this newsgroup to be very helpful and informative and we both learned a [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > Joy >The PA should check his/her head area for gray matter. > >DRINK WATER. Not drinking water is not the fix. If you read more carefully you see that PA said "less water" and so says Walsh who is authority on prostate and you are NOT. So there is no reason for checking gray matter of "his/her head area". Kegel's exercices obviously helped me and I am perfectly continent for at least six weeks now. Surgery took place on Nov 24, 2003. Tee >Talk to the doc for starters. > >Keegels, anyone? > >John. <<Kegel's exercices obviously helped me...>> What evidence can you offer up that kegels did the trick? Are you still doing them? If kegels were responsible for curing incontinence, then stopping kegels for some period of time should show a regression back to incontinence. Anyone here stop doing kegels and find incontinence return? ><<Kegel's exercices obviously helped me...>> > >What evidence can you offer up that kegels did the trick? >Are you still doing them? I am the walking evidence. I was doing them every time I went to the bathroom and only then. I stopped the flow of the urine for at least two or three times for about ten seconds. I noticed a significant improvement as time went by. In the beginning I could not stop. Gradually I was able to stop when my bladder was partially empty. After a few weeks I was able to stop the flow any time I wanted for any lenght of the time. Now, I am doing them once a while - maybe two, three times a day, that's all. >If kegels were responsible for curing incontinence, then >stopping kegels for some period of time should show a >regression back to incontinence. > >Anyone here stop doing kegels and find incontinence return? Kegel's exercises are nothing more then strenthening the sphincter which is basically a muscle. I will not try to stop doing them just to find out if incontinence will return or not. I do not want to be a guinea pig. Tee -- Miser, qui nunquam miser! Yes, many times over the past 6 years. But I use a portable electrical stimulation unit to make sure the pelvic floor muscles are exercised. Dr. Kegel developed an excellent approach to using other muscles to assist the extrernal spincter but it does require guidance or, in my case, assistance in exercising the right muscles. stimulation On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 15:50:09 -0600, "peter*pan" ><<Kegel's exercices obviously helped me...>> > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > >Anyone here stop doing kegels and find incontinence return? My surgery was August 1, 2003 and I have started to show improvement just within the last month. I still leak during the day, but am down to using one Depends Guard per day. For no good reason I have not done the Kegel exercises in the last few months, so that does not appear to be a factor. I did do them regularly before returning to work though. For the last six months I have been using 4 to 5 pads per day and sometimes more on weekends when I was active. I lost count of accidents (wet my pants) and one day had it happen twice. Don't give up. My uro told me it could take a full year to get better, and I believe Dr. Walsh says that it can take a year and a half, but at that point it is as good as it will ever get. Good luck to you. Try not to let this dominate your life. Be thankful there are effective products like the Depends that allow you to live life more or less normally. Thank you. David S. >>The PA should check his/her head area for gray matter. >> [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >> >>John. > My surgery was August 1, 2003 and I have started to show > improvement just within the last month. I still leak during the day, [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Thank you. > David S. Great to hear the good report, David --- congratulations! I've been "working without a net" for a week now. Larry > I've been "working without a net" for a week now. And just who is this "Annette" you've been working without? yuk, yuk I didn't know you were such a card, Joe --- I'll bet you shuffle when you walk ... ;)} Larry Joe (Shaw) <joeprice@shaw.ca> wrote: > > I've been "working without a net" for a week now. > > And just who is this "Annette" you've been working without? > > yuk, yuk > When my friend was diagnosed last summer with prostate cancer and we found > this newsgroup to be very helpful and informative and we both learned a lot. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Joy Kegel exercises, and perspective (that is, maybe he should think of this as a small problem considering the disease might have taken his life). jimhoney > When my friend was diagnosed last summer with prostate cancer and we found > this newsgroup to be very helpful and informative and we both learned a lot. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Joy According to Walsh in "Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer"---which is well worth reading---at Hopkins, half of all patients are not using pads at 3 months and almost all are not using pads at one year. So your friend does have a bit of time before begin concerned. Still, one would expect a bit of progress by now, so he should talk to his doctor about it. If he hasn't been doing Kegels, you should certainly start now. He may need some advice about how to do them. > When my friend was diagnosed last summer with prostate cancer and we found > this newsgroup to be very helpful and informative and we both learned a lot. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Joy The fact that he's "leaking" and not just gushing out sounds like a sign that he's got some urinary control. That's very positive. He needs to keep working on it with Kegel exercises. I'm guessing that he'll continue to slowly improve. Some lucky guys are continent right away. Some unlucky guys never regain continence. Some guys like your friend are in the middle, but hopefully he can work himself over to the lucky side. Alan You didn't give any history of progress: has the leaking been the same since surgery, or has it improved. My progress has been slow but steady, and in stages. I started out at ~12-15 pads per day. Suddenly that dropped to ~9-12/day, then ~7, then ~3-4, and now I am at ~1-3/day. Where once I thought I was doomed to wear pads forever, I now actually believe it may eventually stop. My LRP was 5/21/03. I do lots of kegels. I read somewhere that too many was a mistake, but I also read that it takes weeks and even months of kegels before they have an impact. I had my prostate out July 15th, 2003. Started off with about 6 pads/day, now down to 1 or 2 (occasionally up to 3 or 4 depending on where I am going and what I do). I expect to be at 1 pad per day in another month or two with normal activities. For many of us it takes a lot of patience coupled with a lot of frustration but continence almost always comes eventually. There are some on this group including me who question the value of Kegels. There is not any hard data to show they really work just a whole lot of anecdotal evidence from people who did them and are now continent. There is an equal number of continent men who did not do them. Those who do them swear by them claiming they worked but others are dry from day one with no Kegels. To top it off, each doctor has different ideas on how many, how often, when, etc.. I flexed that sucker for weeks both before and after surgery with no effect. What progress I have achieved recently has come on its own long after I gave up on the Kegels. I think the exercise strengthens the muscle but continence comes when the nerves heal, not how buffed up the muscle is. Only my two cents. Dave Perry Dave: I didn't start to really improve until I began to forget to kegel --- no connection of course, just a coincidence. My rad-onc doc, however, has a different technique for kegelling: he says tuck in your butt and your stomach and hold it --- like when you salute your wife... By his definition, those of us who try to maintain decent posture are kegelling and didn't know it. That might explain my improvement despite neglecting my kegels. Larry > I had my prostate out July 15th, 2003. Started off with about 6 > pads/day, now down to 1 or 2 (occasionally up to 3 or 4 depending on [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > heal, not how buffed up the muscle is. Only my two cents. > Dave Perry I'm 7 months post RRP, have given up on Kegels (think I overdid them for the first few months, but at some level, or to some extent, they may be needed). I'm frustrated, dissappointed and dejected at this point, can point to only minimal progress over 7 months, and the significant progress I got resulted, I believe, from meditating/concentrating on the nerves in the area of the (now gone) prostate, and mildly trying to stimulate them while lying down. Soon after that (5 months post RRP) I noticed some fluid retention in the bladder while walking down the street, cause I all of a sudden felt warmth in my pants (i.e., not just drip, drip, drip). It hasn't improved since, and I'm just going to forget about it and wait until its time to install an artificial device (1+ year). > When my friend was diagnosed last summer with prostate cancer and we found > this newsgroup to be very helpful and informative and we both learned a lot. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Joy Sorry you are having suck problems. Most of us get it back within a year. Hopefully, you'll have success in the next 5 monhts.  SignatureProstate Cancer Survivor (so far), not a doctor PSA 16 10/17/2000 @ 46 Biopsy 11/01/2000 G7 (3+4), T2c RRP 12/15/2000 PSA .1 .1 .1 .3 .4 .8 EBRT 05-07/2002 @ 47 PSA .3 .2 .2 .2 .3 Erection 05/12/2003 @ 48 HTbegins 07/21/2003 @ 48 PSA .1 Lupron 7/03, 8/03, 12/03 > I'm 7 months post RRP, have given up on Kegels (think I overdid them > for the first few months, but at some level, or to some extent, they [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > > > > Joy |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.