Hi sherbert. 

I was diagnosed with prostate cancer back in 2010. I had robotic surgery and my PSA has been < 0.1 ever since. 

There is normally no need for hurry in early stage prostate cancer. My surgery was delayed for a few months to get my blood pressure under control, but it didn't affect the outcome. 

If I had to choose again, I would choose surgery again - provided it's done robotically at a high volume centre by experienced surgeons who are doing more than 2 prostatectomies a week.  Normally, any centre you get referred to will meet all these criteria. 

There are several reasons why I would choose surgery:  

-- After the surgery, the removed organ will be examined by a pathologist and you'll know for certain whether the cancer was contained or spread.

-- After surgery, your PSA should drop to <0.1 within 6 weeks and stay there for life. If ever it begins to creep up you'll have plenty of early warning to resume treatment. 

-- If more treatment is required, then you can have radiotherapy after surgery, but you can't have surgery after radiotherapy. In other words, you have the option of a second bite of the treatment cherry, and an extremely good chance that this second bite will cure you. 

If you want to talk further then I'm happy to do so.

Hi thanks for your reply.

Can I ask how you felt after your robotic surgery? How long was it till you felt better. My husband is very concerned about incontinence. he is only 64. 

He is healthy and has had no symptoms. He only went to be checked due to a strong family history of prostate cancer. I think this is one of the main reasons that he has been advised to have surgery. 

Have you had any reoccurence since surgery.

Thank you for replying it means a lot

I was pretty tired for the first couple of weeks and mostly slept. There wasn't much pain and it was easily controlled with normal painkillers.  

When the catheter came out it I was continent .. until I laughed or sneezed. I did my pelvic floor exercises several times every day and there was a slow improvement.  After 3-4 months I stopped using the large pads, and switched over to Always Ultra, which I actually cut in half.  By this time, I had very little leakage.

After 6 months, I stopped using any pads (still doing the Pelvic Floor exercises) and I was ok apart from the odd small accident.  After 8 months, I went on a day trip to London. I didn't wear any pads, but I took one with me, and a spare pair of undies, just in case. But it was OK. By the time I reached 12 months, I declared myself fully continent and I haven't looked back since. 

My hubby was diagnosed with prostate cancer in June, we live in Birmingham but our local hospital do not have the Da Vinci (robotic) machine. Instead we went to Coventry where he had excellent care. When we saw the Consultant we asked if he could fit us in any quicker if there was a cancellation, at the time he doubted that there would be. However, we got a call a few days later asking if we could attend for the op on the following Tuesday!  So it’s always worth mentioning that you are happy to have it done at short notice. Hope all goes well.

Hi there

Thank you for your response . We have been told if we opt for robotic surgery we would have to go to Wolverhampton as we are in Kidderminster. 

Sounds as though your hubby got seen quickly. Hope all is going well with him and thank you for your best wishes