This forum is for the discussion of anything to do with Prostate Cancer. There are only four rules:
No fundraisers, no commercials (although it is OK to recommend choices of treatment or medical people based on your personal research; invitations to participate in third-party surveys are also acceptable, provided there is no compensation to YANA);
No harvesting e-mail addresses for Spam;
No insults or flaming - be polite and respectful at all times and understand that there may be a variety of points of view, all of which may have some validity;
Opinions are OK, but please provide as much factual evidence as possible for any assertions that you are making
Failure to abide by these simple rules will result in the immediate and permanent suspension of your posting privileges.
Since this is an International Forum, please specify your location in your post.
You've go to give yourself a chance on the ED front.
In my own case, I had RRP in February 2007, at the age of 40 with Dr Eastham at MSK. Gleason 3+3 PSA 3.1 T1c. ED was fairly slow to resolve itself - I'm still noticing improvements to this day.
I used 25mg daily of vitamin V, with an occassional larger dose or Cialis to shake things up. In my experience, there was little difference between 25mg and 100mg except for the size of the headache and stuffed head that I got.
I also "played" a lot. The day the catheter came out, 3 painful orgasms with an utterly flaccid penis. The pain went away over time and so did the flaccidity. At 1 year, I was able to get a 6/10 or better with 25mg, most of the time. Past that point is when I started to notice something interesting - I found improvement was coming in waves. There would be a period of stagnation or even regression that lasted from weeks to even a month or two. Then, all of a sudden, there would be a very noticeable improvement. At around 2 years it seemed to taper off and I though maybe it was as good as it was going to get (which I would define as about 80-90% of where I was pre-op). Anyway, those improvements have been continuing. Just noticed last night that I came out of one of those lulls and, if last night and this morning is anything to go by, I'd have to call it 95% of pre-op.
Even though I got prescriptions for V & C in February, I haven't filled them, and as of right now, I don't see much need.
Point of all this, when they say 2 years (and I've seen it say up to 4), they mean 2 years. Yes, it sucks, but give it time. Feel free to e-mail me anytime.
One more data point... I had Robotic surgery 6/15. I am 54, Gleason 6 (3+3), T1C.
I've had no problems with incontince - wore pads for five days - no more since.
Now, three months post op, I have occasional (1-2/week) soft noctural erections and a few morning erections. A few are about 90% pre-op. So... I too am feeling optimistic that given time things will be okay.
