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What is Prostate Trouble?

Prostate trouble is a group of symptoms that men experience as they age. These include frequently passing water at night and slow urinary flow.

To find out how bad your symptoms are click here.

How does prostate trouble occur?
Prostate trouble is caused by the growth of a gland at the base of the bladder. The normal role of the prostate is to produce fluid that helps sperm in their mission to fertilise the egg. This becomes less useful as we age and as the gland grows it begins to pinch off the water pipe (urethra) as it leaves the bladder. Just like bending a hose pipe, the water finds it difficult to flow and the bladder struggles to produce the necessary pressure to overcome the blockage. Patients usually find that their bladder becomes either lazy; i.e.

  • bladder empties poorly
  • poor flow
  • Having to wait before passing water
  • Getting up at night to pass water

Or overactive with:-

overactive with frequent trips to the lavatory with a sense of urgency.


What can be done?

The benefits of treatment are increased flow, better bladder emptying, decrease in the need to get up at night. The worse your symptoms are the more likely you are to benefit.

The most simple thing to do is nothing. Many men find that symptoms come and go over the course of several months. Often however as the years go by things gradually deteriorate and treatment or advice is sought.

Tablets are the simplest treatment. There are two classes of tablet; alpha blockers which relax the muscle in the prostate and 5 alpha reductase inhibitors which shrink the gland. Your doctor would decide which of these is most suitable for you. Although tablets would seem the best option they do not work for everyone and sometimes have troublesome side effects. In addition they do not seem to work indefinitely and there is a danger that all we may be doing is postponing the inevitable

For a few people an operation is vital (if you are starting to develop kidney failure for example) but many people can have their symptoms controlled with tablets. Your doctor will inform you which is most suitable for you.

You can watch a short video clip of the procedure if you wish click on the picture below. For more on surgery please look here

 

What About Prostate Cancer?

Early prostate cancer doesn't actually have any symptoms at all. The only way it can be found is by using a blood test called PSA. For more information on this see the prostate cancer area of the web site

The urinary symptoms described on this page are only rarely caused by prostate cancer. Benign, non cancerous causes are much more common. The only way to be sure however is to be checked over by your general practitioner. Don't do the usual male thing and bury your head in the sand!

 

Prostate Cancer

Waterworks Problems

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Prostate Surgery Video (RealVideo) 50 seconds to download