“Doc, I have very sudden needs to urinate, like I have 30 seconds between feeling the need and going in my pants a bit. Whassup?”
“Sounds like you have an enlarged prostate.”
“So I know what’s going to kill me?”
“Probably not.”
I know that prostate cancer is usually a slow killer and a glance at me shows I’m likely to die of heart failure long before that. Still, it was small comfort; we didn’t continue the conversation, and I got a new doctor. This one is very much my type–think Linda Fiorentino in Men in Black–and I’m not sure how comfortable I am having someone I might like In That Way shoving a lubed finger up my butt. It could be…embarrassing. Thankfully, my blood work included the prostate-specific antigen test and I came up with very low numbers, so I can carry on in my dream world. Still, I’d like to shrink it so I can stop always wearing dark pants. Does anything work where I can avoid getting a new, uglier PCP? I try, um, draining it regularly, but I’m 61 and that doesn’t always work.
An enlarged prostate is NOT prostate cancer. It’s just an enlarged prostate. It’s been my understanding that 100% of males, if they live long enough, will have prostate trouble sooner or later.
There are medications that will treat this. Are you specifically insisting on home and OTC treatments, to the exclusion of Rx medications?
Ask your doctor about tamsulosin, a.k.a. Flomax. It’s an alpha blocker (similar to the blood pressure med terazosin, a.k.a. Hytrin) but it’s action more specifically targets the prostate.
I have a question: saw palmettto pills (made from the fruit of a palm tree) are sold OTC, and are prescribed by doctors in Germany. The USDA says they are worthless-what is true?
On a second note, it is interesting to see drug trial test results-sometimes placebos work 9up to 145 of the time).
As noted above, that’s the least of my problems! I want to shrink it so it isn’t an anvil for my fat pushing down on my bladder. (Yeah, I know. Lose weight.) OTOH, while my blood pressure isn’t bad, it could be lower. I already have dizzy spells, but I usually enjoy them so that’s not a deal-killer. When I HAVE to see her to get refills on my sanity pills I GUESS I will mention it, but in the mean time I will try to find a trustworthy brand of saw palmetto. No, I’m not optimistic about that.
I had all the symptoms of enlarged prostate several years ago. Urgency, frequency, getting up at night, etc… my doc send me to a urologist who ran all the tests. He said, no prostate even mildly enlarged. About that time my older brother, who had the same symptoms was diagnosed with bladder control issues. His doc gave him a prescription for that which helped him greatly. I tried his prescription and, Bingo. Better. My doc gave me a script for Detrol LA which has served me well. I take it “as needed” like when taking a boat ride or driving 8 hours to Florida or flying to Stockholm as I did a few weeks ago.
From what I’ve read bladder control issues are usually experienced by women, something like 90% of the time and the same symptoms are almost always prostate related for men.
Amongst other side effects, tamsulosin gave me a very clogged nose, to the point that I was waking up in the middle of the night with a very dry mouth, needing to drink water.
In my case, this cure was worse than the original problem, since one of my goals was getting a full night sleep.
(Rapaflo had the same results)
The fact that Saw Palmetto doesn’t appear work (based on a large number of good quality studies) should make your decision about whether or not to use it fairly straightforward, no?
It’s not necessarily about control – my control is fine, but the bladder alarm goes off early and often. I started using Oxytrol patches after a few nights of having to get up to pee every two hours.
Not much help for you men, but it’s great stuff for those of us who don’t have a prostate.
To reassure you, there is no way I’m going to pay good money for something that doesn’t work. Something I found that helps is–ladies, avert your eyes!–regular harvesting of unneeded genetic material. Put that off too long once and my whole lower abdomen took to aching. Tapping some off was a great relief.
You can get lycopene by eating tomatoes, guavas, papayas, red peppers, grapefruit, asparagus, purple cabbage, mangoes, carrots, and watermelon, too. Eating those can’t hurt, either. In fact, eating lycopene in such natural sources will likely confer many other benefits as well.
Actually, it sounds like a good dinner. Wife is allergic to guavas, papayas, or mangoes, but she doesn’t remember which, so all the more for me.
Sounds like a cue for another stupid anecdote! She taught me to always wash fresh fruit in soap to get off all the dirt, pesticides, and migrant workers’ urine (I’ve mentioned before her issues with food safety), but on our way home from the store she was eating cherries out of the bag and spitting the pits out the window. I looked over and noted that she was hitting the side mirror so often that I though she was aiming for it. “I am,” she said.
“There are splashes of cherry juice all over it and it sounds like they are bouncing back in.”
“Nah, they’re bouncing into the street.”
“Just don’t bounce any off other people’s cars.”
It’s like I’m married to a six year old boy sometimes.
I don’t have a subscription to uptodate (because I’m poor). What, if anything, do they have to say about African wild potato (Hypoxis hemerocallidea), Pygeum or African plum extract (Pygeum africanum), and rye grass pollen extract (Secale cereale)? I’ve seen some promising studies on all three, but don’t know if enough have been done yet to have 1A level evidence either way.
