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I am going to have to have surgery for an inguinal hernia. I have severe urge incontinence with unpredictable large floods, which I have managed for many years by wearing a diaper 24/7. I am concerned about what I'll need to do to manage my incontinence for the first few weeks after the surgery. I would appreciate hearing from any of you who have had abdominal surgery about how you managed your incontinence in the postoperative period. Were you able to continue to wear a diaper? Did you use an external or internal catheter? Or what?

Contact your surgeon's office. His/Her nurses have likely encountered this many time before. They may want you to use a Foley or a condom catheter for a few days while you recover. Good luck and keep us informed.

Yes, you can wear (and use) a diaper after most any surgery. If the surgical site will be inside the diaper area then your doctor will need to know so they can plan on keeping it bandaged (and hopefully not wet with urine). However, urine is sterile so you won't need to worry a out that part as much as trying at keep the wound dry so it can heal.

For me, this just meant changing more often and giving the scar some air time to dry it out better.

Oh, and I should mention. I've had a number of urinary sphincterotomy surgeries. I start out with using a catheter as it was needed to help stop the bleeding in my urethra. The catheter was removed after a few days and I then continued to bleed a little and pee in my diaper while I continue to heal.

Since urine is mostly salt water (and sterile urea), it will actually help flush and keep any wounds clean. Only when pee sits in a wet diaper for 8 plus hours will it start producing bacterial problems. Change often enough, and you have nothing to worry with having a damp diaper against an open wound.

My dad recently had that surgery, his post-op recovery was surprisingly swift. He isn't incontinent, but he did seem to be able to move okay afterwards. I will hold out hope that your recovery is swift too!!

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I met with the surgeon who will do my hernia prepare a few days ago. The procedure will be open (i.e., not laparoscopic) and will involve placing a tension-free screen to hold the protruding bowel back in place inside the abdomen. It is scheduled for June 8. We discussed the issue of how to handle my incontinence. He said I had three choices: continue to wear a diaper, use an external catheter, or a Foley catheter. He said the choice was up to me, but I think he seemed to favour the Foley catheter.

Whether to have a local anesthetic with mild sedation or a general anesthetic is another choice that will be up to me to make. I'm wondering which choice any of you who may have had a similar choice have made about anesthesia. At the moment, I think I'm leaning toward having a general anesthetic, but I'm unsure.

Same here. I forgot to mention I've also had several surgeries where hernias were removed. Each time I stayed diapered afterwards. Again though, not allowing my diaper to get too soaked by changing a little more often helped a lot in letting the surgical site to dry out enough and heal, but there was no real not to be diapered in the first place.

I would avoid the general anesthesia, unless you have serious anxiety about the surgery and want to be totally out. General is much riskier, and has residual effects.

I had to have a testicular repair surgery about 12 years ago. I was also given the option on anesthetic. I ended up going with a spinal block, plus sedation. I don't remember any of it.

MSUSpartin is right. General anesthesia is more risky, but it is also more effective. In my 2 or 3 dozen surgeries (not kidding) I was knocked out for all of them but two because I had to be awake for responding during the surgery.

With the spinal block I could still vaguely feel tugging, but no pain and of course all of the sounds. The sedation I was under kept me calm, but I was awake and remembered it all. He is right about the anxiety too, if you have that even a little then opt for the anesthesia.

With the anesthesia I have been out every time and have never woken mid surgery, but will wake up with severe nausea- unless I remember to tell them to give me anti-nausea drugs when they wake me up. With that I am always fine except for the expected sore throat that goes away in a few hours.

When I go in for my pre-op exam, I'll talk to the anaesthesiogist and probably follow whatever he or she suggests. The principal disadvantage of a general is that I'm always unable to pee for 24 hours after I've had a general. However, very likely the surgeon may put in a Foley whichever form of anaesthetic I have. So that probably wouldn't be a problem. It's weird that although I'm normally incontinent, a general anaesthetic has always prevented me from peeing voluntarily for a while.

It can paralyze your micturation reflex.