Incontinence after Prostatectomy: Drink water, enjoy sex again!
It’s a simple health message we’ve heard all our lives: Drink water to stay healthy.
However - Prostatectomy usually affects bladder control, so you might be thinking:
Surely I should decrease my intake while incontinent to avoid toilet-rushing and pad-overflowing?
In fact, counter-intuitively, drinking MORE water during recovery will speed up your recovery, reduce the need to pee, and give you a better quality of life.
THREE reasons to drink more water during your continence recovery…
And some ‘Sex with Incontinence’ tips at the end!
1. Speed-up Your Continence Recovery.
Vanita Gaglani is an American Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist with a 10-week program designed to get men continent again after Prostate Surgery.
She talks about the importance of drinking water in her book: “Life After Prostate Cancer and Other Medical Conditions: A Step-By-Step Guide to Stop Urinary Leakage in Ten Weeks” and for good reason. Here is what she wishes all men knew about the positive impact of increasing fluids:
Increase Your Bladder Capacity = less toilet trips.
“Your bladder is a muscle and can increase or decrease in size, just like your stomach. If you do not drink enough, over time the bladder will shrink in size resulting in a decreased capacity to hold fluids. Therefore, the first sensation to urinate will appear at lower volume of urine, and increase the need to urinate frequently” (page 38)
Increase Blood Volume = better muscle function.
If you are dehydrated, this affects blood supply to the muscles. Bladder control is achieved by practicing focused pelvic floor muscle exercises (Physiotherapist, Jo Milios, explain her top kegel exercise for men here). Therefore staying hydrated is the foundation for your long-term rehabilitation.
Improve Blood Circulation = aids erectile function.
Staying hydrated improves your blood circulation. Erections are a cardiovascular event, so anything that helps your heart health, helps your ‘hard health’. This is also why cardiovascular exercise is recommended during recovery, as well as improving your diet.
2. No more worrying about that ‘urine smell’
I’ve heard from many post-prostate men that one of their biggest pre-surgery fears was turning into a “dirty old man”.
Images of old men in nappies might give you shivers down the spine. It is greatly upsetting that society has propogated this ‘dirty old man’ idea, and if you are worried about this, trust me you are not alone - in fact, one of my clients, Martin, spoke up about this fear and how he actually found the experience of using pads post surgery in this video:
Increasing your water intake will ensure that if/when you do leak, the urine does not have that ‘urine smell’, diminshing any self-conscious ‘can other people smell me?’ feelings.
Tip : Vanita Gaglani recommends watching out for the colour of your urine as an indicator for how much water to drink. Dark yellow indicates drink more water, clear urine indicates you need more electrolytes, a light yellow is just right.
3. Enjoy your Sex Life
This story was contributed by our infamous dating-without-my-prostate blogger:
“During my current rehab period (now 10 months) ‘Pedro’ is still not standing to attention, so receiving oral sex is one of my favourite sexual pleasures.
But - if I’m dehydrated with a bit of bladder leakage, and I haven’t made any effort to give ‘Pedro’ a wash, I’ve had women I’m dating say: “I am not going down there!”
If you relate to this scenario, don’t worry, it’s easily avoidable by - you guessed it - drinking more water.
Pedro’s owner says:
“The more water I drink during the day, then the clearer the urine is, the less it smells and the taste is not noticeable if there is a small bit of leakage during play”
Please note: Urine is sterile. So if a bit gets in your partner’s mouth, it will not do any harm - of course, that doesn’t make it an inviting experience.
Very few people want to experience urine-in-the-mouth, so here are some extra tips to avoid that:
Empty your bladder before sexual play.
This is the simplest, and most effective method I’ve heard men employ. Sometimes this is all you need to do.
Have a shower together before you begin sexual play.
Showering together before sex can be the perfect way to relax together, improving your sexual experience. You can begin with a sensual wash, and leave all feelings of self-consciousness about ‘urine smell’ at the door.
Enjoy sexual play in the shower.
Many men leak while aroused after Prostatectomy (this is called Climacturia). In the shower, you don’t have to worry about this happening as the water will wash it away. You are likely to enjoy sex and pleasure a lot more without that on your mind!
Here’s the caveat though - the shower will wash off all bodily fluids. Therefore, if your partner has a vagina and enjoys manual/penetrative stimulation, you are going to need silicone lubricant. The water does not wash this type of lubricant away. Just make sure you watch out for any residue on tiles, it needs to be wiped away to avoid a slip hazard!
Note: vaginal stimulation can be very unpleasant and painful without lubrication, always check in to make sure your partner is lubricated enough to enjoy the sensations of internal and external stimulation. If you are female and feeling pain during sex - do not put up with it! There are many lubricants you can try and many ways of experiencing touch, experiment until you find what definitely works for you. Fiona tells us her own story here.
Invest in a ‘Sex Blanket’.
A sensual, velvish-feeling blanket, with a magic ability - the blanket can hold up to 4 litres of liquid, without it soaking through. A simple machine-wash on cold, and a light tumble-dry and you can use it again. A blanket like this can also become an arousal cue. Laying it out on the bed can be a simple way to initiate sex with your partner without needing to directly tell them ‘I’m in the mood today’. Available in a range of sensual colours.