Hiya Pete172.
I had “fragile” control of my continence when I walked out of hospital, 2 weeks after my surgery. However I have to stress it really was fragile as if I sneezed, coughed or did anything that involved the quick “grab” of my abs, I more often or not had the common accident. The more pelvic floor muscle excercises I did, the better my control got. I was doing about 10 min excercise 3 times a day and it really did help me gain control, but as you know, it’s only during waking hours. We will never have night/sleep continence as our new bladder does not have a nerve connection to our brain. During the day wears me out also........for me that uncomfortable, sort of cramping pains as the bladder starts to refill starts about 15-20mins after my last pee & gradually gets worse until anywhere between 2 or 3 hours, I can’t take it anymore and have to quickly find a toilet. As for intimacy, from what I understand, it varies with every individual depending on where and how much of the muscles had to be taken off. For me, I’ve been one of the lucky ones as by about Day 5 or 6 after surgery, I realised in the morning that I had 100% functionality. My advice to anyone who has or is in our shoes are 2 things......(A) do your pelvic floor muscle excersises with strict focus & (
it is soooo important to NOT put xtra weight on as our new bladders are smaller so you don’t want it crowded & squeezed by xtra tummy fat. Good luck with it Pete