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I am 12 months post surgery. I have very good response to Viagra, but without the pill I only obtain 25% fullness compared to pre-surgary. Dr. office said second year will see less healing than the first year, which doesn't make me feel optimistic. Has anyone experienced a "healing spurt" post one year where their erection ability showed improvement? I have a lot of healing I'm hoping for!
It is nineteen months since my robotic surgery. Though my surgeon was able to perform bilateral nerve sparing techniques with my RP, he said there would be no guarantee post surgery. I had very little response to any of the ED pills for the first ten months, nor did I get any reaction at all to visual stimulus, but in the last nine months I have slowly but surely obtained strong enough erections for intercourse with the pills (they all do the business for me now) and I have found myself gradually getting stronger erections without pills, particularly nocturnally (though still fairly flaccid), over the last couple of months. I live in hope that there is still room for improvement. My urologist said to give it two years. I never had any trouble in this department pre-surgery, but I know it will probably never be like it was. I fully understood the risk I took with my decision on treatment, and I think I am lucky to be where I am. Hope this helps. Good luck.
Thanks for your note Charles, and you did help. Honestly, I do feel lucky having Viagra induced erections early on in the recovery process, but I was looking for some feedback on the second year's healing progress; and I think you did give me some. Over the last nine months (most in year two) you have had significant healing. Agree? Would you even say you had more in year two than year one (something my doctor's office (not my doctor) said would not happen). Let me know, and thanks for your feedback.
I was 40 when I had RRP surgery - Gleason 3+3, T1c, negative margins, nerve sparing by Dr Eastham at MSK.
I had a lot of early progress (anything is better than where you are in the days post surgery) and decent viagra reposnse in the first year (although I'm not sure I got beyond about 80% even with viagra)and then a sort of plateau somewhere later in the second year, which perhaps was partly mentally driven. Now, around 8 months through my third year, I feel like I'm at 95-100%, without benefit of viagra. My observation for the past 8-12 months is that I've gone through steps. There would be a plateau lasting for a period of weeks (2-4 I'd say) with perhaps even some regression (again, perhaps mentally fuelled). Then, there would be a sudden huge improvement, followed by another plateau, etc. At my 2 year appointment in February, I got perscriptions for viagra and cialis. I have yet to get them filled.
So, my own take is to give it two years, then give it a third, and try (I know it's not easy) to stay positive.
I entirely agree with Dan's comments here. Improvement comes and then plateaus, when you think it may never get better and then there is suddenly more movement as it were. I have definitely had more success over this second year post RP (Gleason 4+3, T1c, positive apical margin), and though at a different age than Dan - I'm 60 - we appear to have had similar experiences.
Tom,
I am 48 and 15 month out from robotic surgery. My erections have gotten better since this past Sept with Viagra but nothing that last very long or is very hard. This past Tuesday I had a shot of Edex 40mcg. It is an injection needle kit in one that is put into the penis. Within 5 minutes I had the penis of a 17 year old. It was hard as a rock the only problem is that it did not go down for 3 hours and I was in a lot of pain but I am now going to go to only 10mcg and see how that works. I will update on the forum and my story when I have all of the HARD facts!!
