My partner had his catheter removed after a week. He has been so lucky. No leaks other than once or twice when coughing. I bought pull ups for at night but he did not need them.He is now 5 weeks post op and has his appointment to see the prof on 20th April. I know he has been lucky.Â
Most hospital's should have an incontinence nurse ask the PALS office at your hospital for help
To all: most manufacturers of pads/pants will send you samples on request.
Re comment on using disabled toilets which of course you will need a radar key to enter, these are available from many sources (some free) or try your local council, hopefully you will already have one.
The other essential is a can't wait card, whilst some establishments may not recognise them, they should help to access toilets in shops or cafe/restaurants. As a matter of courtesy I always ask before marching in.
Sorry I am a little delayed in replying to you - post operation, things went a little crazy for a while - and we were back and forth to the hospital a fair bit. But things are more settled now - We are on the waitlist for a Continence Nurse but did have a really useful phone call with a nurse about exercises. Meanwhile I ordered a load of stuff from Boots which seems to be working out fine.
The continence is only really an issue at night, day time is pretty good, and its time now to try and hold onto the water to stretch the bladder. Accidents may occur! We have been warned, but thats ok we are prepared.
We went back to see the surgeon this morning and received great news - that the prostate was removed with clear margins and that the lymph nodes all tested clear as well. A huge relief, as my partner has recently completed chemo for Lymphoma. So today is a good day and its definitely the first day of the rest of our lives!
Thankyou for the good wishes, good luck with your recovery. I'll still be on here!
You should ring your GP surgery or continence nurse at your hospital and ask if your health board supply these - this normally means being assessed by a district nurse and then ordering from a private company who will deliver to your door. Otherwise I have used tena pants for men - available in most supermarkets these days and some do their own brand which would be cheaper and I use Tena guards - they have various grades of absorbency and I still use them as if I know i am going to be unable to access a lavatory quickly - like on a long journey or conference when I may have a slight accident.
That's what I did. Had to phone the District Nurse and she did a consult. Then she put her recommendation through to the "Incontinence Service".
They delivered a boat load of Pads (which can be worn or put in the bed to lie on). They are massive, but if they help to stop anything coming through...
Initially I was told just to ring the "inconvenience Service". It was the most embarrassing and humiliating thing so far.
When I had my catheter removed the hospital provided two weeks supply of Tena pads and a further two weeks supply of another manufacturer, so four weeks in total. During the first four week's I contacted my doctor, they could not supply Tena pads because this is something the district nurse takes care of. It took a few weeks to see a district nurse so I bought four weeks of Tena level 2 pads from Amazon. The district nurse gave me a questionnaire I had to fill in over three days, to cut a long story short the district nurse now supplies my Tena pads.
As far as what level of incontinence pads to use I would expect this to vary from person to person, in hindsight I would suggest Tena level 4 for the first two weeks then drop down to level 2. After two weeks I was changing my pads twice a day so get a few in.
Thanks for posting this, I will be contacting the district nurse about incontinence supplies.
I'm 11 days after radical prostatectomy and 4 days catheter-free. I found, much to my surprise, that I am completely dry at night (due to lying down?) but getting through pads in the day like they are going out of fashion, especially as I am trying to be more active every day.
I had a radical prostatectomy in 2002 and from then onwards I have had to wear a pad. I am mostly dry during the night but in the daytime I can use 2 pads, with the second one staying on all night. Up until this year I had pads supplied on the NHS but this had now stopped as they say I am not meeting the minimum amount of urine per day to qualify so I now have to buy my own and get them on line. I use TENA 2 pads.
