Posted 9/25/2015 8:04 PM (GMT -5)
Hello All -- This is Bill Positive who hasn't posted or read anything here for 3-4 months, since before summertime anyway. I hope everybody is doing well, or put differently, isn't doing badly.
I'm 9 months out now from my Radical Retropublic Prostectomy (RRP) at Johns Hopkins last January. I just last week got a new PSA test result: <0.01 ng/ML. Horay!
Less fun and very inconvenient, for whatever reason, some incontinence is making a return visit these past 6-7 weeks. Now I'm running to the bathroom, running to urinate between two parked vans, peeing a bit in my pants a few times. I hate it when that happens!
I never reliably did my kegels, but I'm doing them now. Only thing I can think of that could be causing it is since early August, simultaneous with the increased incidences of incontinence, I'm juicing raw organic vegetables. The raw organic veggie juices are 80-90 percent of my total food intake. My mood is off the charts (I feel sensational) when I'm sticking with the juicing (no dairy, no fruit, no meat, no fish are byproducts of the veggie juice fast). When I'm not juicing I have familiar periods of feeling crabby and irritable. It's not worth it, and I go back on the juicing.
I'm wondering if there's something irritating to my bladder about juicing raw organic carrots, broccoli, cukes, cauliflower, burdock root, ginger, kale, and the occasional apple. Does anybody have any experience with a diet like this?
The other suspect as causing the greatly increased urgency is I'm having some burning when peeing maybe 25 percent of the time. I need to get myself checked for a possible UTI (urinary tract infection). Would you agree that's a likely suspect for causing more urinating, some with a burning sensation?
Same old story for me re that other pillar (pun intended) Side Effect of having my prostate removed, good old Erectile Dysfunction. Viagra does nothing for me but with 20 mg Cialis, I get 80-85% of my pre-surgery Willy full function for 72 hours beginning with sending the pill down the hatch. Cialis that costs $39/pill 6 weeks ago, moved up to $52/pill 4 weeks ago, and as of last week, had yet another price increase up to $62/pill. I'm guessing Cialis has 12-18 months to go until it's patents expire so they are making their money while they can. Maybe I shouldn't complain ... that company that is in the news lately .... they recently acquired the rights to an old drug (not an ED drug) that was $13/pill, and now it's $750/pill! Nothing changed, just new ownership.
I've thought about enrolling in Plan D, the prescription drug benefit of Medicare, to get Medicare to pay for Cialis for me, but I get stopped in my tracks when I read about the U.S. Congress specifically excludes all ED drugs from Plan D. My Johns Hopkins surgeon has kindly offered to write a letter to Medicare in support of Medicare should cover me .... I'm not a "recreational" sexual activity person. I just want, reasonably and fairly in my view, my pre-op level of sexual function restored to me via, for the time being, Cialis.
Where's my soapbox? There it is. Who granted conservative U.S. Congressmen the right and power to deny the restoration of us guys who had Prostate Cancer and who had the surgery and who now have ED -- a common known side effect of RRP, the denial of ED drugs like Cialis or Viagra? This is purely a medical issue between one's personal physician and/or a man's urologist/surgeon, and is not in any way, shape, or form, some sort of moral issue of the political right. It's discrimination, plain and simple. I'm off the soapbox. That's my two cents worth.
Over and out for the moment.
God bless us all,
Bill Positive