How Can You Tell If Your Prostate Is Enlarged

When To Contact A Medical Professional

Enlarged Prostate – What You Need To Know

Less urine than usual
Back, side, or abdominal pain
Blood or pus in your urine

Also call if:

Your bladder does not feel completely empty after you urinate.
You take medicines that may cause urinary problems, such as diuretics, antihistamines, antidepressants, or sedatives. DO NOT stop or change your medicines without talking to your provider.
You have tried self-care steps for 2 months and symptoms have not improved.

Enlarged Prostate Many Options To Treat This Common Problem

ROCHESTER, Minn. More than half of men in their 60s experience symptoms caused by an enlarged prostate gland. Add another decade or two, and nearly all men experience symptoms that may include a weak urine stream, difficulty starting urination, stopping and starting while urinating, and an urgent need to urinate.

The July issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter covers how the prostate gland changes with age and ways to find relief for whats technically termed benign prostatic hyperplasia.

The prostate gland is just below the bladder and surrounds the urethra through which urine passes out of the body. After puberty, the prostate gland is about the size of a walnut. As men age, the prostate gland can increase in size, pressing on the urethra and interfering with urine flow.

Men with mildly enlarged prostate glands and mild symptoms may not need immediate treatment. Studies have shown that up to one-third of mild cases clear up without treatment.

When treatment is needed, the focus is on reducing troubling symptoms and restoring normal urinary tract function. Several medication options are available for men with mild-to-moderate symptoms. Therapies include:

Alpha blockers: These drugs relax the bladder neck muscles and muscle fibers in the prostate. They help increase urine flow and reduce the need to urinate as often. Medications in this category are terazosin, doxazosin, tamsulosin, alfuzosin and silodosin.

Surgery options include:

How Might An Enlarged Prostate Affect My Life

Having an enlarged prostate affects men in different ways. Some men can manage mild symptoms and dont need treatment. Other men find they need to stay near a toilet. This can make it difficult to work, drive, be outdoors and attend social events. If you need the toilet a lot during the night, this can affect your sleep and make you feel more tired during the day.

Some men with an enlarged prostate find their symptoms improve over time without treatment. But for most, the symptoms will stay the same or slowly start to cause more problems over time unless they have treatment.

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Remedies For An Enlarged Prostate

Even if you have an enlarged prostate, that does not mean you must live with the symptoms for the rest of your life. Your doctor might advise one of several approaches to coping with BPH, including lifestyle changes, medication changes, and other treatments. The remedies and treatments available will depend on your own health situation and how disruptive the symptoms have become.

Get Sufficient Exercise

Exercise can improve with your overall fitness, as well as benefit your prostate health. Studies have shown a connection between increased physical activity and reduced risk of BPH, with exercise of any type having some degree of benefit.

Seated activities, such cycling, can put pressure on the perineum and groin. This can lead to numbness or pinched nerves. To avoid these issues, make sure you utilize a wide seat and engage in a variety of activity types.

You can also try Kegel exercises to strengthen your pelvic muscles and reduce urine dribbling. To do these exercises, squeeze the muscles that affect urine flow and then release, repeating several times to train the muscles.

Slow Down

When you head to the bathroom, make sure you slow down. When you relax your muscles and leave time to account for delayed urine and possible dribbling, you’re much more likely to completely empty your bladder. Urine that remains in the bladder because of an enlarged prostate can lead to urinary tract infections or painful bladder stones.

Reduce Caffeine and Alcohol Consumption

Risk Factors For Prostate Cancer

How To Treat Enlarged Prostate with Home Remedies?

Some risk factors have been linked to prostate cancer. A risk factor is something that can raise your chance of developing a disease. Having one or more risk factors doesn’t mean that you will get prostate cancer. It just means that your risk of the disease is greater.

Age. Men who are 50 or older have a higher risk of prostate cancer.
Race. African-American men have the highest risk of prostate cancerâthe disease tends to start at younger ages and grows faster than in men of other races. After African-American men, prostate cancer is most common among white men, followed by Hispanic and Native American men. Asian-American men have the lowest rates of prostate cancer.
Family history. Men whose fathers or brothers have had prostate cancer have a 2 to 3 times higher risk of prostate cancer than men who do not have a family history of the disease. A man who has 3 immediate family members with prostate cancer has about 10 times the risk of a man who does not have a family history of prostate cancer. The younger a man’s relatives are when they have prostate cancer, the greater his risk for developing the disease. Prostate cancer risk also appears to be slightly higher for men from families with a history of breast cancer.
Diet. The risk of prostate cancer may be higher for men who eat high-fat diets.

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What Are Common Prostate Problems What Are The Symptoms And Signs

Here are some examples of non-cancer prostate problems:

Benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH, means your prostate is enlarged, but is not cancerous. It is very common in older men. An enlarged prostate may make it very difficult to urinate or cause dribbling after you urinate. You may feel the need to urinate a lot, often at night. See your family doctor for an exam. Treatments for BPH include:

Watchful waiting, also called active surveillance. If your symptoms are not too bad, your doctor may tell you to wait before starting any treatment to see if the problem gets worse. Your doctor will tell you how often you need to return for checkups. You can start treatment later if your symptoms worsen.
Medications. There are medicines that can help shrink the prostate or help relax muscles near your prostate to ease your symptoms. Talk with your doctor about possible side effects.
Surgery. If nothing else has worked, your doctor may suggest surgery to help urine flow. There are many types of BPH surgery. Talk with your doctor about the risks. Regular checkups are important after surgery.
Other treatments. Sometimes radio waves, microwaves, or lasers are used to treat urinary problems caused by BPH. These methods use different kinds of heat to reduce extra prostate tissue.

What The Prostate Gland Does

Deep within your groin area, a gland the size of a pingpong ball rests just below your bladder. In fact, your urethra, the small tube that carries urine from your bladder through and out of your penis, runs through the middle of your prostate gland.

If your prostate changes shape or size, it squeezes the urethra and hinders the flow of urine. Here are some of the other signs you might notice if your prostate becomes enlarged, also called benign prostatic hyperplasia .

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When To Get Concerned About An Enlarged Prostate

Common symptoms of BPH involve difficulty beginning to urinate, straining to urinate, dribbling at the end, and a decreased force of the stream. This occurs because the prostate surrounds the urethra and its enlargement will squeeze the urethra making it difficult to urinate.

When symptoms begin to affect your quality of life, it is time to see McIver Clinic. It is time to decide on a treatment that is right for you depending on your age and the severity of your symptoms.

Do not ignore painful or burning urination, painful ejaculation, blood in the urine or semen, frequent pain in the lower back, hips, pelvic or rectal area.

Possible complications from untreated BPH include the following:

Urinary retention
Chronic prostatitis causing chronic pelvic syndrome with pain in the lower back, groin, and tip of the penis
Bacteria infections

What Exams Tests And Procedures Diagnose Bph

Enlarged prostate – What do I need to know?

A physical exam is required to see if other medical problems may be causing your BPH symptoms. The healthcare provider will order a digital rectal exam to examine the prostate gland. The healthcare provider may feel the prostate by inserting a gloved, lubricated finger into the rectum. The rectal exam allows your doctor to roughly estimate the size and consistency of the prostate. Most importantly, it allows the doctor to feel for lumps or hard areas that could indicate the presence of prostate cancer. Your doctor may check your urine for blood or signs of infection. Your blood may be tested for kidney problems , for PSA levels , a screening test for enlarged prostate, prostate cancer, prostatitis, and urinary tract infections

Some men are referred to a specialist for further tests. Urologists specialize in diseases of the male and female urinary tracts and of the male genital tract. Before you are treated for BPH. It is important for the doctor to rule out other possible causes of an enlarged prostate, such as prostate cancer, which is benign or non-cancerous.

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If You Are Diagnosed With Bph

Taken together, these tests will help your doctor determine whether you have BPH and if you do, how severe it is. If you have BPH, your doctor should provide you with information on whether simply monitoring your symptoms is a reasonable option, or whether treatment is a better option.

BPH can be treated medically or surgically in some cases.

Ruling Out Prostate Cancer

If you have symptoms of BPH, your doctor might also test for prostate cancer. An early examination is important because only a comprehensive exam will determine whether you have BPH, which is a benign condition, or whether you have prostate cancer, which is best to diagnose early. Important tests for detecting prostate cancer include a digital rectal examination and prostate-specific antigen test.

Digital rectal examination : During this test, your urologist will feel your prostate. The exam shows whether your prostate is hard or asymmetrical, both of which can be signs of cancer, or soft, which is less likely to indicate cancer. Your urologist will insert a lubricated, gloved finger into your rectum. If your doctor feels anything that may indicate prostate cancer, you may need to have more tests to make an accurate diagnosis.
Prostate-Specific Antigen Test: This blood test measures a protein produced by the cells of the prostate gland. It is always done and evaluated in conjunction with a DRE.

It is important to recognize that a high PSA reading alone does not mean that you have cancer. An elevated PSA could be a sign of a number of conditions, including BPH, or prostatitis, an inflammation of the prostate. There is no evidence that prostatitis and BPH cause cancer, but it is possible for a man to have one or both of these conditions and to develop prostate cancer as well.

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What You Can Do

The best thing to do is** create a bladder diary to log your symptoms**, and bring it to your doctor. If the onset of symptoms is acute or sudden, its less likely to be BPH. Gradual onset of symptoms, and weak or slow urine flow is more likely to be BPH, or related condition. OAB is usually associated with more urinary tract infections, although there is some overlap.

What Is The Turp Approach

A transurethral re-sectioning of the prostate is amongst the most common surgical procedure which works on the principle of the endoscopy. In this process, an excellent tubular camera is a slit through the tip of your penis until it reaches the urethra. Later, it passes through your bladder for removing the presence of any excess tissue present lining it.

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How Is Bph Diagnosed And Evaluated

Early diagnosis of BPH is important because if left untreated it can lead to urinary tract infections, bladder or kidney damage, bladder stones and incontinence. Distinguishing BPH from more serious diseases like prostate cancer is important.

Tests vary from patient to patient, but the following are the most common:

Treating An Enlarged Prostate

If you find yourself with any of these symptoms, Dr. Cornell performs a thorough evaluation to determine whether BPH has developed and where.

Based upon this information, he recommends a treatment plan that could include:

Medications to improve urinary flow and shrink your prostate
Prostiva® RF Therapy to open the passageways
PlasmaButton vaporization to remove prostate tissue

If youre struggling with any of the symptoms we describe above, we urge you to contact our office in Houston, Texas, as soon as possible. Through early intervention, we can restore your quality of life by restoring your urinary function.

Diagnosing An Enlarged Prostate

As with all incontinence conditions, a thorough diagnosis must be developed before action can be taken. You may have heard of some of these exams. And if you havent, now is a good time to familiarize yourself with them. Not only is knowledge power, but it also eliminates surprises.

Because those with BPH can experience symptoms from mild to severe, the treatment options featured here are organized from least invasive to more intense.

What Are Causes Of An Enlarged Prostate

4 Things to Avoid if You Have an Enlarged Prostate Dr.Berg

Benign prostatic hyperplasia occurs mostly in older menEnlarged prostate symptoms generally appear after age 40. In fact, BPH or enlarged prostate can affect about half of men ages 51 to 60, according to the National Institutes of Health .

Experts arent really sure what exactly causes an enlarged prostate, but because it occurs mainly in older men, they believe it may be due to hormone changes. For instance, as guys age, they tend to produce less testosterone, giving them a higher percentage of estrogen. Its possible this can trigger prostate growth.

Its also possible that an accumulation of the hormone dihydrotestosterone or DHT, which can continue even after testosterone levels dip, can make your prostate cells continue to grow, the NIH says.

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How Do I Know If My Prostate Is Enlarged

If your prostate is enlarged, it may not be a sign of cancer, but it is something that you should discuss with your doctor. Many of the symptoms of an enlarged prostate tend to relate to urination. If you are concerned about an enlarged prostate, here are 7 symptoms to look for:

Difficulty starting urination. The enlarged prostate alters the pressure of your bladder to pass urine. This can have damaging effects on your kidneys.

Weak urine stream. As the urethra becomes constrained, urine passes at a much slower rate.

Urgent need to urinate. You may go from not needing to urinate to suddenly needing to go because of how the bladder gets constrained.

Issues with sleeping. Pressure from the enlarged prostate can interfere with nerve signaling in the middle of the night. This leads to you thinking you have to urinate when you dont.

Feeling unable to completely empty your bladder. You may not be able to completely empty your bladder, which can lead to Urinary Tract Infections and stone issues.

Urinary tract infection. A UTI is caused by the urine that sits in your bladder which you cant fully empty, creating an environment for bacteria to thrive.

Bladder stones. The leftover urine in your bladder can also crystallize to create bladder stones.

Sign : Hesitancy To Start Urinating

It sometimes happens. You go to urinate, and nothing comes out immediately. However, if it occurs regularly, something might be amiss.

When the prostate pushes too much against the urethra, the narrowed tube can prevent you from even starting. You stand there ready, yet it takes a while to get going. This is particularly frustrating if it has happened when youve urgently wanted to go.

Sign : Frequent Urge To Urinate

You feel sudden urges to go anytime, even if you have little or no urine in your bladder. The urge may be so strong that you feel like you cant hold it until youre in the bathroom.

These urges can significantly impact your life. If you wake up to go 2-3 times or more per night because of them, you could suffer from fatigue, loss of focus, moodiness, and lack of energy.

What Is A Prostate Infection

Enlarged Prostate: Everything You Need To Know

A prostate infection occurs when your prostate and the surrounding area become inflamed. The prostate is about the size of a walnut. Its located between the bladder and the base of the penis. The tube that moves urine from the bladder to the penis runs through the center of your prostate. The urethra also moves semen from the sex glands to the penis.

Several types of infections can affect the prostate. Some men with prostatitis experience no symptoms at all, while others report many, including intense pain.

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What If I Cant Have Surgery

Surgery isnt always an option you may not be fit or well enough for an operation, or you may not like the idea of it. If surgery isnt suitable for you and lifestyle changes and medicines havent worked, your doctor or nurse may suggest using a catheter. This is a thin, flexible tube used to drain urine from your bladder. The catheter may be permanent or temporary.

A permanent catheter is passed up into the bladder through your penis, or through a small cut in your abdomen. The catheter is usually attached to a drainage bag, which you strap on to your body under your clothing. Your doctor or nurse will usually change your catheter every 12 weeks.

A temporary catheter is where you put a catheter in yourself when you need to urinate, rather than leaving one in all the time. Your doctor or nurse will show you how to put the catheter in and tell you how often to use it. Some men can urinate quite well without a catheter and only use it once a day to make sure they empty their bladder regularly. Other men need to use a temporary catheter several times a day.

You can lower your chances of getting a urine infection by keeping your catheter and the area around it clean. You may find the following tips helpful.

Let your nurse know if your catheter isnt draining properly. If urine hasnt drained from your bladder for 2 to 3 hours, contact your GP or district nurse straight away.