# What did old timers use for BPH before Flomax?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 18, 2009, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788 "2009-12-18T20:19:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2009, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/1 "2009-12-18T20:19:17Z")
What did persons use for BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia) before Flomax (antagonist of alpha1A adrenoceptors in the prostate)?
I remember hearing of prostate problems when I was a kid about the end of WWII or so. What was the treatment back then?
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2009, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/2 "2009-12-18T20:29:35Z")
Prostatectomy?
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### Author:  [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/3 "2009-12-18T20:55:37Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#):
>
> Prostatectomy?
At the end of WWII and earlier surgery was quite serious. Perhaps some did have prostatectomy but wouldn’t that have been rare and dangerous?
What did they do in 1300 or 1700 or even 1900 perhaps?
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### Author:  [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/4 "2009-12-18T21:05:46Z")
Saw palmetto is sometimes efficacious in relieving symptoms of an enlarged prostrate. Surgery offered a sure cure, though with the typical risks of surgery.
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### Author:  [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2009, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/5 "2009-12-18T22:02:17Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#):
>
> Saw palmetto is sometimes efficacious in relieving symptoms of an enlarged prostrate. Surgery offered a sure cure, though with the typical risks of surgery.
Saw palmetto’s benefits, if any, were not known then. In any event, as you noted, it doesn’t work for everybody. I relied on it and was unable to urinate at all for a while, after Achilles’ tendon surgery. I went to my tp who said that in “the old days” I’d be dead.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2009, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/6 "2009-12-18T22:02:23Z")
I don’t know how far back people have been using saw palmetto . . . but I take it, and it works.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/7 "2009-12-18T22:05:14Z")
> [@barbitu8](#):
>
> I relied on it and was unable to urinate at all for a while, after Achilles’ tendon surgery.
Uh . . . you seem to have an atypical anatomy. 😕
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2009, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/8 "2009-12-18T22:06:35Z")
> [@janeslogin](#):
>
> What was the treatment back then?
I honestly believe it largely consisted of the doctor telling the patient, “Well, you’re getting older, you’re going to have to expect some stuff like this.”
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### Author:  [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/9 "2009-12-18T22:36:23Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> Uh . . . you seem to have an atypical anatomy. 😕
An anesthesiologoist told me afterwards, that this is common after some surgeries due to the pain drugs you are given with the anesthesia. The real problem was that I was discharged from the hospital, unable to urinate, and when I complained about this to the nurse, she said it was just sensitive. The problem was not adequately addressed and I should not have been discharged in that condition.
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### Author:  [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/10 "2009-12-19T00:33:12Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#):
>
> I honestly believe it largely consisted of the doctor telling the patient, “Well, you’re getting older, you’re going to have to expect some stuff like this.”
Hell, I was told that very thing last Tuesday.
When my father had prostrate problems back in the 1950s, his doctor told him that every man would have prostate cancer if the just lived long enough. The surgeon’s cure for my father was to remove the whole damn thing. He lived to be 93 and had to give up sex in his mid-40s. I suspect that surgery was the method of choice for quite a while.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/11 "2009-12-19T02:05:39Z")
BTW, men who have had their prostates removed do not have to stop having sex.
And also BTW, if you have an enlarged “prost **R** ate,” it probably means that you take up too much space when you’re lying down.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/12 "2009-12-19T04:03:07Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> BTW, men who have had their prostates removed do not have to stop having sex.
The ones whose cancer requires a bilateral nerve resection will find it difficult with a limp dick, however.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/13 "2009-12-19T06:23:50Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#):
>
> The ones whose cancer requires a bilateral nerve resection will find it difficult with a limp dick, however.
Does that mean there’s no longer any feeling in the penis? Because if there’s feeling, you don’t need an erection . . . unless, of course, you’re a missionary.
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### Author:  [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/14 "2009-12-19T06:30:32Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> Does that mean there’s no longer any feeling in the penis? Because if there’s feeling, you don’t need an erection . . . unless, of course, you’re a missionary.
Having a prostate removed doesn’t necessarily mean you will have no feeling in the penis nor be unable to have an erection – I know first hand. It can cause that but it doesn’t automatically mean that. It does mean you will produce little to no seminal fluid.
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### Author:  [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/15 "2009-12-19T06:33:40Z")
Finasteride (aka, Propecia. Yes, the stuff that grows hair.) It’s supposed to help reduce prostate size and has the possibility of hair growth as a side effect.
I’ll let you know if it works in another four months or so.
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### Author:  [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/16 "2009-12-19T13:56:22Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> BTW, men who have had their prostates removed do not have to stop having sex.
>
> And also BTW, if you have an enlarged “prost **R** ate,” it probably means that you take up too much space when you’re lying down.
Picky, picky, picky; I made a spelling error. It is only one of several thousand I make over the course of time; I doubt it threw confusion into the minds of the huddled masses.
MY father, later in life, told me his sex life was finished when his prostate gland was removed. I believed him. Whatever his other shortcomings, he wasn’t a liar. YMMV
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### Author:  [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/17 "2009-12-19T14:03:14Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> Does that mean there’s no longer any feeling in the penis? Because if there’s feeling, you don’t need an erection . . . unless, of course, you’re a missionary.
Or unless you happen to be repressed devout evangelical Southern Baptists who came of age during the 1920s.
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### Author:  [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/18 "2009-12-19T14:20:21Z")
And, for the modern old goat, there is this:
> **[T.U.N.A. (Maybe TMI)](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=426485)**
>
> T.U.N.A. = Trans Urethral Needle Ablation. I’ve gotta have it. Tomorrow morning. They’re gonna stick a cattle prod where I don’t want a cattle prod stuck and they’re gonna use RF waves from the cattle prod to trim my damned old wore out prostrate...
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### Author:  [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/19 "2009-12-19T21:57:07Z")
> [@LouisB](#):
>
> And, for the modern old goat, there is this:
>
> [T.U.N.A. (Maybe TMI) - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=426485)
Well, no. Recently, laser surgery is used, which was the situation in my case. My urologist calls it “the green light.”
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### Author:  [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-old-timers-use-for-bph-before-flomax/521788/20 "2009-12-19T22:10:28Z")
> [@barbitu8](#):
>
> Well, no. Recently, laser surgery is used, which was the situation in my case. My urologist calls it “the green light.”
I think I might have been the subject of a trial run; that particular urologist now uses laser; i really wish he had used it back then.
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