External Catheter

I celebrated the removal of my catheter 3 weeks post rp by drinking 3 beers. I soaked the bed. Depends free Twenty years later. My father hated depends so much he got stopped drink water..
He got severely dehidrated almost died.i feel for you good luck. Stay hydrated

Sounds like I'm on a similar journey. I'm 74, had DaVinci RP on 17nov22, internal catheter came out 28nov22. I guess I'm old enough that I figured that if the erections came back that would be great, but if not, oh well. I had 60 years of good sexual function. Who am I to complain? Too soon to tell for sure, but things in that department are promising. My big concern before surgery was "How will I deal with long-term urinary incontinence?" I'm a "be prepared" kinda guy and I wasn't thrilled with the idea of pads and/or diapers. Also, I couldn't imagine doing self-catheterization with an internal device. Upon searching the net, I found information about external catheters. This seemed like the perfect answer for the worst case scenario.
Here's what I've discovered so far about using external catheters:
- They are available in 2 or 3 different materials of construction
- Latex - I shied away from this choice because, although I don't currently have an
allergy to latex, the prospect of 24x7 contact made me think it could develop
- Silicon - my choice, non-toxic, hypo-allergenic, very stretchy, see-through clear
- Hydro-Colloid - dunno, looks identical to silicon as far as I can tell
- Self-Adhesive or No-Adhesive
- The adhesive ones have a very aggressive adhesive. When I first began to
investigate these I made the mistake of trying one on that was too small.
Couldn't wait to get if off. The pain of peeling it off was excruciating. I've
since learned that common rubbing alcohol dissolves the glue and allows it
to be removed fairly easily and painlessly but makes a mess needing cleanup.
The urology PA suggested hot water on a washcloth. That doesn't work.
I think these have advantages in that they won't come off accidentally and
since they don't use a circumferential band to help keep them in place, they
don't interfere with urine flow or blood flow. If I could find a means to remove
them without pain or mess, these would probably be my choice.
- No-Adhesive - I've used these every night for a week now along with a pad and
diaper, for just in case. At first I was reluctant to put much tension on the foam
retention band and had a disconnect/leak. Once I determined that it's pretty
much impossible to fasten the foam band tight enough to cause a problem,
it's been ok since. No disconnects or leaks. The problem, for me, is that I can't
seem to make them work for day-time use. They stay put for sleeping, but
during the day I'm moving around, walking, climbing stairs, sitting and standing.
That movement causes disconnects. Then too, after the surgery, I tend to
'turtle' sometimes and the no-adhesive catheters have no chance of not falling
off when that happens.
So, for now, I'm using a no-adhesive catheter, tubing and a bed-bag for night-time
and pad and diaper for days.
IF ANYONE CAN OFFER ANY INSIGHTS ON HOW TO EASILY REMOVE THE ADHESIVE
CATHETERS, IT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.

Thanks for your suggestions, they are appreciated. Minor breakthrough today .. since I've gone a week with no daytime problems wearing diaper and pads all day, today I risked no diaper, just pad and regular underpants. No problem. Have to celebrate even the little successes. I'll be following up on your links. Thanks again.

I just checked out the 'Men's Liberty' web site. Interesting idea. The first question I have is what about kinks in the line. The tubing going from the catheter to the bag appears to be fairly short. It would seem that unless the penis is pointed down towards the leg having the bag attached the tubing would kink and prevent flow. Also, wearing tight underpants, as the BioRelief ones appear to be, generally means that pointing up is most comfortable for me. Pointing down puts kinks in the dink.
On a related issue; what about using the night-time bed bag? The one the hospital sent me home with had about a 5' tube on it and pretty much required that the bag be hung on whichever of the bed's side rails was closest to the catheter. This was problematic for me because I tend to roll around and sleep on my back and on both left and right sides. The short tube of the bed bag constrained this movement and I never got a good night's sleep. About a week and a half ago I got fed up with that situation, ordered and installed a 10' length of vinyl tubing between the catheter and the bag. Now the bag lays on the floor off the foot of the bed. The tubing gets attached to my left ankle with a 2" wide elastic bandage for strain relief and goes directly off the foot of the bed. Roll around all night. No problem. Comments?