Part 4

kayak had a list of questions in his earlier post. I will answer them in regard to my experience noting that my surgery was BipolEP versus HoLEP.

Q: How long were you in the hospital following HOLEP?
A: About 24 hours

Q: How long did you have to have a catheter in for?
A: Just under 24 hours

Q: Was recovery painful?
A: Not at all. Surprisingly little pain with this procedure.

Q: Did you experience incontinence!
A: No. Just a little red ooze especially in the first week. I used Depend for Men light shields in briefs for the flight home and that handled it well. That subsided within 2 weeks and I don't use the shields any longer.

Q: Was there significant improvement in urination?
A: OMG YES! <big smile!>

Q: Was it difficult to get out and about within the first three months?
A: No problem at all. I am 6 weeks post surgery and completely back to normal activities.

Q: Did you lose the ability to have an erection?
A: No. All good in that department. <another big smile>

Q: Did you lose the ability to ejaculate?
A: Yes. Well, as paul55 stated in an earlier post, I have retrograde ejaculations. The semen does not exit your penis as it normally would. My doctor advised me of this before the surgery. On this point... at this early stage after the surgery, I feel like it does slightly diminish some of the physical satisfaction of sex. I do feel the pleasure of the orgasm, but it's kind of difficult to explain. I guess it is sort of like when you feel like you are going to sneeze but then you don't, if that makes sense. I would like to hear other men's opinions on this point. Please post them in this thread.

Whew! Sorry this got so long. I hope I didn't put you all to sleep. I typed it in a word document and then copy/pasted it in here. Apparently it was too big for one post so I broke it up into smaller parts. If anything I wrote spurred a question, please feel free to ask. If anyone with medical expertise finds anything I wrote to be wrong, please correct me!