pain post radical prostatectomy

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Greetings,

I had surgery a week ago. Mostly things are fine. However, 3 or 4 times a day I experience very sharp abdomen pains, stating in the lower penis and sometimes on my bottom. The pain is intense and lasts about 15 minutes. I can only cope by very slow walking. I can't find a triger but it seems to be connected with constipation. I have had a few bowl movements which were soft but not excessive. I have very careful with diet, no dairy, no spices, no caffeine.. Is there a way of managing these attacks when they happen to lessen pain? My hospital says they are normal and I will see them when I have the catheta removed later this week. Thanks for any thoughts.

Gemma J - Macmillan over 2 years ago

Good morning Graham333

Welcome to our online community. My name is Gemma, and I am one of the cancer information nurse specialists here. Your enquiry has been passed through to our team to answer.

I am sorry to read that you are having such intense pains following your prostatectomy, these do sound difficult to cope with.

This type of pain is sometimes referred pain from nerves that have had to be cut to remove your prostate. While it is a common side effect, there are things that can be done to help ease it until it settles down.

As we are unable to access health care records to give individualised advice, we would encourage you to speak with you GP so that they can assess your pain thoroughly, and in line with your medical notes. It would be worth mentioning your bowels too as you have noticed a connection to the level of pain.

Often having regular simple painkillers can dampen down the level of pain when these attacks happen, your GP might consider prescribing some for you.

Complementary therapies have also been shown to help with controlling pain. You can read more about them here. You can often access these through cancer support charities. We have this online search tool that can help you find if there is one local to you.

Check you are not overdoing things in general too, it can be tempting to try to return to usual levels of activity when you are at home. Your body will need plenty of rest to heal.

It may be useful to connect with other men who have had a similar experience to ask what worked for them. I see you are already a member of our prostate cancer forum. You might also like to join the forums on Prostate Cancer UK. They have a specific thread for treatment side effects, and this is a topic that has been discussed in there several times.

I hope this information is useful. If you think it would help to discuss things in more detail, please do call in to our *freephone helpline on 0808 808 0000 open daily from 8am-8pm.

Our ref AM

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pain post radical prostatectomy