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Appointment with Dr. before surgery
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Sep 17 2:34pm | Replies (15)Comment receiving replies
Thank you all your for kind responses and warm wishes.
My doctor only read the biopsy report and mentioned that on one side the odds of nerve sparing were good but on the other side he would only know until surgery day. He did not walk me through why he was interpreting things this way, nor did he go through the MRI images to visually explain what we are dealing with.
My doctor has a good reputation, from what I have researched, although I have not been able to find a figure on number of procedures performed. I would not feel comfortable asking him about this but maybe I should, in a subtle way.
Thanks for the suggestion on starting pelvic floor exercises now, weeks ahead of my surgery. From comments in this forum, I actually read this same recommendation and I have now started the exercises with therapist guidance.
I appreciate your helpful comments and will try to request an appointment with my doctor before the procedure so that he can walk me through a more detailed plan of what we can expect. I believe that this will be for my own sanity as I prefer to know things realistically beforehand and avoid unexpected surprises later.
Thank you.
Replies to "Thank you all your for kind responses and warm wishes. My doctor only read the biopsy..."
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I was worried about this before my procedure too. My surgeon was very clear with me and said, “I’m going to try to spare your nerves, but once I’m in surgery, my priority is to cure you of cancer.” In the end, I lost one side of nerves.
Before surgery, to improve my chances of sexual recovery, he prescribed me tadalafil 5mg daily, which I will always remain on, just to keep blood flowing properly. If you have not already, I would ask your surgeon about starting tadalafil before surgery as well. I also made a point of doing Kegels whenever I was sitting at my desk, in the car, and so on, which I think helped with incontinence.
For ED, after surgery, I started using the Soma Therapy OTC system: https://augustams.com/product/soma-therapy-otc-manual-system/
for about 5–10 minutes daily. It’s been helpful for keeping blood flow without using bands, basically just exercising your erection. For sex, I’ve had better results with the Vacurect pump: https://anactivelife.com/products/vacurect-1002-otc-ved-pump
since it seems to hold an erection longer.
I also have a meeting scheduled next week to talk about Trimix injections. I’m still hoping for some natural recovery, but honestly, I don’t know if that’s in my future. Wishing you the best as you go through this.