More Some Side Effects of Prostate Radiation that Oncologists Kind of Tell you About; or,Pissing in the Moonlight

Michelangelo’s David  1504

Pissing in the Moonlight means (and I’m quoting Shakespeare here), To Pee, or not to Pee: That is the Question: whether Ti's nobler in the mind to suffer the Slings and Arrows of a Bursting Bladder, or to Take Arms Against a Sea of Incontinence, And by Opposing End Them?  In other words, to piss oneself to sleep.  For months, my sleep was interrupted every night causing me to urinate up to six times between 11pm and 7am.  Needless to say, not only was it inconvenient, but it was difficult to fall back to sleep so much so that I began taking Trazadone to get me there.  My brother, who had prostate surgery decades before, still uses a plastic urinal next to his bed rather than make the trek from bed to toilet so I tried it.  But after one night, in the fog of Lupron, when I tilted the jug a wee bit too much to the wrong side, it spilled.  End of the urinal idea.  Pissing oneself is one thing; pouring piss on oneself is quite another.  My partner suggested I just sleep with a Depend and “piss to my heart’s content.”  The downside to that suggestion is that after multiple nightly pees, one sleeps with a rather soggy Depend.  Not good.  One of the more curious side effects for me was at the same time I was urinating, I also felt the need to defecate.  This daily double was not the daily double I had bargained for.  So, what’s a fella to do?  Enter Cialis.  As you may know, Cialis (aka Tadalafil) is a phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibitor that’s prescribed for erectile dysfunction (ED) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).  What I didn’t know until my urologist prescribed it, was that 5mg daily, over time, would reduce my urge to urinate multiple times a night.  Sounded too good to be true, but I took it as prescribed and lo and behold, it worked.  Worked so well there were times I only got up once to urinate and sometimes only in the morning.  It was a miracle.  So, why am I telling you this?  Because docs may not share it with you for any number of reasons contingent on your own case, but you should know there are options to minimize pissing in the moonlight unless, of course, one finds that sort of thing romantic or Shakespearean.