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Aloha Charlie,
It would be difficult to pin your incontinence on EBRT/IMRT as each man reacts differently to radiation treatment. My incontinence did not show up until April this year (IMRT Sept/Oct 07). It has taken six months to determine that I have an open wound inside the urethra that appears to be degrading.
I've had a couple of times that I would leak a little at night when I was not wearing a pad of some sort. The men's pads are huge, and you probably could get by with a smaller panty liner like I do.
If it gets to the point where you see dark urine or perhaps a little blood when you wipe, then you should see your uro-doc.
If your damage is minor, healing has a good chance.
Sometimes the prostate is tucked up into the bladder a bit which means that the lower part of bladder gets a larger dose than planned. Beginning a couple of years after treatment, we started seeing red areas in the lower part of the bladder during a cysto. The cysto was to determine where a very dark discharge came from, which was blood and only lasted a day or so.
Hope your conditions do not get worse.
Hamakua Coast,
Joe
Hi Charlie, I also had external beam radiation in mid 2009. This followed a prostatectomy in late 2008 with negative pathology. I had no bladder issues until mid 2010, when I developed intermittent blood in the urine and occasional bed-wetting. These symptoms gradually got worst over time. In December I had surgery to cauterize the bleeding areas in my bladder and biopsy for possible cancer. No cancer was found. Now (five weeks after the surgery) blood in urine is much reduced but I have severe overflow incontinence and constantly leak urine requiring constant diaper use. I weighed the diapers and leakage totals over one liter. I am in the process of investigating what has happened and what to do about it.
