Prospects After Prostatectomy?

Welcome to Connect, Michael,
Great questions to ask. I appreciate your starting this discussion about weighing the potential side effects of treatment, especially sexual dysfunction and incontinence after prostate cancer treatment, and how this affects quality of life. I'm bringing in fellow Connect members into this conversation. @ronoir @donnelson @oldkarl @flor @BuckyFestoon @giddyup1 @morris @warrens @dglass4040 @rinron and @santi have all talked about prostate cancer. You can see their conversations here:

- prostate cancer treatment choices http://mayocl.in/2uqQ5YN
- Prostate cancer treated with Leuprolide http://mayocl.in/2uqJJIY

Michael,
Is radical robotic prostatectomy the only treatment option available to you? Or the best treatment option given your circumstances? Flipping your question -- would you consider not having surgery if you were told you had a 40% chance of being incontinent?

My husband has been with Leuprolide (Eligard) for more than 16 years and He doesnt have incontinence our sex just was over He was 65 and I was 53. But I had a cervical spine surgery a year before the cancer. I am happy thT He is alive now at 81 years old and Both of us cocluded that We could show our love in many other ways. Hope this is helpful.

Thanks Colleen for your reply. A friend of mine had this procedure done using amniotic tissue to repair nerve damage. He was 100% functional with respect to urination and ED as soon as the tube was removed. Almost miraculous, but I know this happened for a fact - just spoke to him and his wife last Sunday at church. Trouble is, they are on the hook for $35K for this new use of the tissue. Also the procedure is in FL - I am in WI. Mayo would be more practical and Mayo is ranked up near the top. So to answer your last question, I do have an option with better odds other than forgoing surgery, it is just an expensive one.

Thanks for the links!

Just for info, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012. I am part of a PC support group of about 20 men, and about 15 have had prostatectomy or similar. I think 6 have regained their sex life to some extent. Part of the problem is that no one knows for sure that the PC was the problem in the first place. I have just learned that my prob was probably my "Primary Systemic AL Amyloidosis with Prostate, Urethral, Bladder, Nerve, Kidney, Pancreas, Spleen, Lung, Cardiac, Brain,..... involvement". Probably the two major issues, Ureter and control Nerve involvement, were the worst. The amyloid thickened the Ureter skin and seems to have blocked the passage of anything, including everything that should have come out the penis. The Amyloid involvement in the bladder gave me an apparently permanent spasmodic blood flow through the catheter. The nerve involvement blocked the passage of control signals to the various organs controlling erection, orgasm, etc. I know that is a long story, but a way to say that the PC alone probably would not have killed my sex life, but it did kill it with the amyloid involvement. Other issues may also have been involved, such as bacteria, psychological, relational,