Laser surgery to remove prostate tissue has been available for about six years only. Mine was done in early 2005, and it was new then.
Well, I can tell you for sure it’s not helping the hair growth thing. And because of the possibility of birth defects, they won’t take my blood anymore.
As for the OP, the original treatment for BPH was to go to the bathroom every hour or so, day and night.
Before medical treatment for BPH, there were urethral sounds of varying sizes, to dilate open the prostatic urethra.
I actually saw a set of sounds used back during my urology rotation, in the early 1980’s. With the patient lying supine, the doc would slip a small one in, rapidly remove it, then insert the next larger size. This was repeated until the sound inserted was very large indeed. The effects might last for a few days to a few weeks, or even a few months, before needing another treatment.
Some patients would go to the black market to acquire their own set and use them at home on themselves.
My dad took minipress for years. It’s a blood pressure medicine, and it also was used to help urination. I’d assume flomax has eliminated the need for minipress.
Odd, I don’t recall dad mentioning this side effect. 
Pee better and have a boner.
I had a Navy urologist use those to clear up a urethral stricture in the mid 80s.
I’m not sure what was worse: the guy reaching for steel rods thicker than a pencil or the fact that they had invited in fifteen corpsman students (male and female) to stare at the whole procedure.
Made a good piss go like a fire hose, though.
Pretty much what has been posted: prostatectomy, but it was a risky procedure. It isn’t all that great now, and almost all patients have impotence and incontinence afterward for months or years. Depends widely on the patient and the skill of the surgeon. I understnad Viagra helps. At my age (82) that is no longer a problem. Unfortunately.
Now there are a wide range of other choices, including “watchful waiting,” brachytherapy (inplanting of radioactive seeds), shaped external radiation and others.
I had the external radiation eight years ago and my PSAs were around 0.01 for years, but a few months ago, it jumped. Bioposy showed the damned cancer and returned. I’m now investigating all the possibilities, but will probably go with the brachytherapy.
Bummer!
Bummer for sure. 
Keep us posted, man.
Heh. Sailors…
Yeah, the sounds were used more often on non-BPH related strictures. Many of which were caused by STDs. A friend of mine who used to be a urologist in the Ukraine tells me a good chunk of his practice was caused by urethritis, which some guys just kept getting over and over and over…
You are referring here to prostate cancer. This discussion has been on BPH.
If you will look at the OP you will see he also asked, “I remember hearing of prostate problems when I was a kid about the end of WWII or so. What was the treatment back then?”
So I wrote about a prostate problem. What bothers you about that?
Prostatectomy has been a treatment option for BPH for many decades now, even before WW II. KlondikeGeoff’s comments as such are quite germane to the topic at hand.
In that case, lasers were available when my little procedure was done; I’ve no idea why a laser wasn’t used.
Has anyone tried Flow-max or other Rx drugs and had negative side effects, i.e., loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, etc.? The saw palmetto doesn’t seem to do anything, and the list of side effects on the Rx drugs is scary.
The side effects of the surgery sound way worse, however.
I’m sorry to hear about your prostate cancer. It doesn’t bother me, but the discussion up to this point had been about BPH.
banjoDavid, I used Flomax without negative effects, but this, apparently, did not help. Saw palmetto also did not help. When I was unable to urinate, my tp was shocked -shocked!- that I had gone off Flomax and was relying upon saw palmetto, but that was all right with my prior urologist (who had since relocated). My tp gave me a handful of Flomax and expected that would resolve my problem, but it didn’t. Both Flomax and saw palmetto use the same biological pathways and their effects should be similar.
Any adverse effects?
None whatsoever. Following that surgery, my urologist told me to discontinue Flomax. I have not been on any medicine since.
FYI, there’s a sexual fetish involving sounds, called appropriately enough, “sounding.” Generally a gay thing, but you’ll also find it in medical BDSM scenes.
I assume that like many things, when it’s done in the doctor’s office for medical reasons it hurts like hell but when you do it on your own it feels much better.
The internet has shown me waaay too much in my lifetime.
Not sure what the good doctor is implying above, but I can assure you that my urethral stricture existed long before I entered the Navy 
Anyway, the most surprising thing about the … urethral dilation … was how little pain was involved. As you watch the doctor picking up a device that is thicker than a pencil, you brace yourself for the worst agony, but I don’t remember any pain at all.
Historically sailors of all varieties are stereotyped as picking up STDs at their ports of call. These invariably cause a certain number of cases of urethritis which result in urethral strictures, and the need for dilation.
A urethral stricture is different from bph, right?
Could a simple NSU cause a stricture 20 years later?
Does the Green Light Laser treatment involve anesthetic? Hospital admittance overnight?