Exercise before surgery helped me with incontinence.

After removing my catheter one week after surgery I have had zero incontinence. I considered myself lucky but then thought of another theory that could help someone going into the surgery.

I had right knee replacement surgery 2 years ago. I did not consider the surgery a huge success. I was unable to bend my knee very far. To improve the bend, I was working out at the gym with the help of a personal trainer. He gave me some exercises to strengthen the knee and help the bend plus, he actually asked me to delay the knee replacement surgery on the other left knee as the exercise should help to strengthen both legs.

I've been using all the machines at the gym that have anything to do with the legs and combine some sit-ups and upper body weight machines for what I call a full body workout.

When I found out that I had only 2 weeks until surgery. I went to the gym everyday and a little harder on these exercises. I'm not an athlete but I wanted to get into the best possible shape that I could before surgery because I knew I'd be doing nothing for at least 6 weeks.

I was fully prepared after the catheter came out to deal with incontinence. I feel that the leg and core exercise before surgery helped me on my recovery.

My surgery went well by the way with no surprises. The surgeon did see an enlarged lymph node and removed it. He sent it for testing right away and the surgery was put on delay for about half an hour. There was no cancer found in the lymph node so the surgery continued.

If you do join a gym after diagnosis I would recommend to not to use a lot of weight. I only used light weights with repetitions of three times 8 or 10. The strength and muscles will build up slowly over time and hopefully you will recover quickly after surgery.