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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Eloquent pilgrim said:

Thanks for your extremely positive input. I’m sure it will be very helpful for anyone reading this thread and looking for advice on the management of BPH …. you’re a real star

Get to not only know your prostate but get to know the downside/side effects of treatments.

 

Incontinence and impotence are common side effects of many treatments.

 

People looking for ways to manage their BPH need an uncensored understanding of what the future could be after treatment.

 

Several posters have posted forthrightly on the negative effect on their life due to Prostate procedures.

Edited by JimmyJ
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Posted
11 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Get to know the side effects of the treatment!

Incontinence an impotence being the 2 usual side effects of all the treatments.

The only real cure for BPH is death.

 

10 hours ago, Eloquent pilgrim said:

Thanks for your extremely positive input. I’m sure it will be very helpful for anyone reading this thread and looking for advice on the management of BPH …. you’re a real star

I think management is the key word. There’s no real “winning” as you get older. It’s just trying to delay more and more ailments, managing or treating stuff that can’t really be cured.

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Posted
11 hours ago, xylophone said:

Good advice Moonlover, and I would encourage guys to do as much research as they possibly can on this because if my situation is anything to go by, then even the best urologists out there are not fully informed, or don't take due care and attention – – a big statement but let me explain: –

 

I suffered from prostatitis for decades and visited several urologists in New Zealand and was prescribed antibiotics on so many occasions that I must have taken many hundreds/thousands of different types of antibiotics, but the prostatitis kept coming back again.

 

The thing about prostatitis is that in most cases it causes the prostate to become inflamed/enlarged, thereby restricting urine flow and therefore putting stress on the bladder, and I remember one urologist who did a flow test on me and then checked the bladder with ultrasound, stating that, "oh, you've got the bladder of an old man", which didn't please me much because I was in my 40s and fit and healthy. BUT, was anything done about it; NO, just put on more antibiotics, which didn't work again.

 

Now the prostatitis/BPH was caused by bacteria in the prostate which antibiotics couldn't touch, for various reasons which I've outlined in previous posts, so for decades my prostate was enlarged and causing my urine flow problems, which I seemed to cope with okay, and didn't pay much attention to it, until I had a TURP and then the bladder problems started because I couldn't empty it.

 

I had taken all of the "usual" drugs for BPH like, tamsulosin, doxazosin etc. etc but to no avail, because the damage had been done to the bladder by not addressing the prostatitis years ago, so it's important that you get to know about your prostate and associated urinary tract workings so you can ask questions.
 

In my desperation I tried just about every natural "remedy", such as stinging nettle root, pygeum, saw palmetto etc because I was desperate for a cure, but again to no avail.
 

 

 

PS. Forgot to add this article: 

https://www.uptodate.com/contents/benign-prostatic-hyperplasia-bph-beyond-the-basics#:~:text=Alpha%2Dreductase%20inhibitors%20%E2%80%94%20Alpha%2D,men%20with%20a%20larger%20prostate

How exactly was it determined you had prostatitis? What tests were done? I have a similar situation as you did where I have frequent urination. I've been told that my prostate is somewhat enlarged but the Tamsulosin doesn't seem to effect things much at all. I'm on Finisteride now and waiting to see if anything improves. I'm 60 now and have been dealing with the frequent urination for about 12 years already. I'm wondering if prostatitis has been overlooked by my urologist. I don't see how it could be.. but now I'm a bit concerned after reading your post.

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Posted

I take 2 doxazosin 4 mg in the evening and 1 in the morning.  For many years. Supplied by local  hospital. I was taking 2+2 but the doctor told me to cut back so I did.  Seems ok and my blood pressure has been good, around 120.  I tried the Cazosin 4 mg (states equivalent to doxazosin) from a pharmacy but my blood pressure went to over 150(!) so I stopped. 

I would be very interested to learn more about other options.  I think I fall into the long neglected category.  The doxazosin 4 works for me but I would prefer a more natural remedy.  btw, I don't drink or smoke (except a bit of weed). Do not eat much meat, lots of fruit and veg and rice. 

Thanks, I will follow this post with interest.????

  

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Posted
5 hours ago, likerdup1 said:

 I'm 60 now and have been dealing with the frequent urination for about 12 years already. I'm wondering if prostatitis has been overlooked by my urologist. I don't see how it could be.. but now I'm a bit concerned after reading your post.

A Thai doctor misdiagnosed my uti as bph. Antibiotics fixed me after supposedly having bph and treatment for over 2 years. 

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Posted (edited)

What is enlarging the prostate, bacteria?


I had a urinary tract infection (uti) recently. The doctor said you get bacteria up there more as you get older. Body can’t fight off bacteria as well. Was pissing all the time. I declined the antibiotics and tried to piss it out on my own.

 

I drank large quantities of cranberry juice and juices in general and had pissed whatever bacteria it was out after a week or so (I assume, the frequent urination is gone). I also drank a bunch of fermented probiotic juices (don’t remember the scientific probiotic name but you can look them up on Google) that were not cheap but I could feel them doing something. The probiotics I took actually eat other unhealthy bacteria.

 

Do the probiotics get up into the prostate as well or are they limited to the urinary tract?

 

 

 

Edited by JimTripper
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Posted
42 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

A Thai doctor misdiagnosed my uti as bph. Antibiotics fixed me after supposedly having bph and treatment for over 2 years. 

You'd think doctors would want to rule out UTIs\STIs first, being in Thailand and all that. Can't trust doctors anywhere really, need to research yourself

Posted
17 minutes ago, notrub said:

I see that postate problems can cause erectile disfunction.  Is there a solution please and what is it?  Thanks

Not true ..........

It's the cure/treatment/medication that causes erectile dysfunction.

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Posted
4 hours ago, Skipalongcassidy said:

I had a superpubicprostatectomy (a reduction in the size of the prostate... not complete removal) some years back... I think that I was 68 at the time... great solution... went from having to pee very often day and night to peeing normally again during the daytime and rarely if ever at night.

Any side effects? I understand ED and retrograde ejaculation are fairly common with prostatectomy . Hopefully side effects were minimal for your case.

Posted

Please seek as many alternatives to an operation as possible. 

It may be the only option, but at least do as much homework as you can. Even try Chat GPT, free on here.

Remember, the more details you input the better the output, also it may not be fully up to date on medical research.

Just avoid invasive surgery if you can, it can often crate more problems than it solves in advanced old age. 

Good luck with it.  

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Posted
13 minutes ago, xylophone said:

You asked a very difficult question to answer, however I'll try my best – – –

 

Prostatitis is difficult to determine because there are two types of prostatitis, one being bacterial, which is reasonably easy to ascertain by tests and prostatic massage, and nonbacterial prostatitis which can be caused by any number of things, the main one being inflammation of the prostate, and this can be caused (amongst other things) by very small calcified stones in the prostate after a previous prostate infection.

 

Generally prostatitis is determined by the number of symptoms that you have which together point to prostatitis, however there is no hard and fast "concrete" diagnosis because it is not just one symptom and can be caused by a number of things.

 

The nonbacterial prostatitis is the difficult one because if it isn't bacterial, how do you deal with it? Many urologists will take the belt and braces approach and prescribe antibiotics along with an anti-inflammatory to see if this helps; please note I write "to see if this helps" because there are no hard and fast diagnosis rules I'm afraid.

 

And to back this up if you were to do a lot of research on the Internet you would find perhaps thousands of pages on prostatitis and similar, none of which will give an exact reason/diagnosis/cause. That's why it is so difficult to treat and can be ongoing for many months or even years (as was in my case).

 

On to your situation......you say you have frequent urination (how many times a day and what volume), which is something I never experienced, however according to some reports this can be a factor in prostatitis, but I would ask if you have had tests for cystitis or urethritis, both of which can cause the urge to frequently urinate, usually with some signs of slight irritation of the urethra (for example).

 

You say that your prostate is somewhat enlarged, so you must have had some tests done on it?? And an enlarged prostate can be caused by inflammation or infection and of course this can give BPH symptoms (you can probably see now why this is such a difficult diagnosis, and why that prominent urologist stated, "this area is a medical wasteland" because there are so many symptoms which are interrelated, yet may or may not be a single cause of prostatitis).

 

Furthermore the above becomes more complicated because the prostatic tissue is not easily penetrated by many antibiotics, so they don't get to the root of the problem, PLUS, bacteria can live beneath what is called a "biofilm", which protects them from many/most antibiotics, so they are very difficult to treat AND if the urologists suspect this, then long low doses of a particular antibiotic can be prescribed.

 

I was often prescribed 90 day courses of doxycycline, which calmed the situation down, but as is often the case, it returned, so I took them for years. Just a note on antibiotics, a decade ago, ciprofloxacin was touted as the go to antibiotic for prostatitis and similar, however it didn't work for me and gave me severe tendon problems, as it has done many people according to reports, and even now it is not recommended as a first-line antibiotic for prostatitis or UTIs (in the main).

 

So your urologist will have made their diagnosis based on a number of factors as noted above. Did they manage to isolate a bacteria? Did they take a prostatic secretion? Did they culture either of the previous findings? Has cystitis or urethritis ever been considered by your doctor/urologist?

 

Overall, IMO, we have not been well served by the medical profession with regards to this, although it appears to be improving, and that's the reason I contacted two eminent professors, one practising in Harley St, London, and the other in Sydney, who had focused on this area for a few years, and had narrowed treatment down to a couple of antibiotics which worked in the majority of cases for them, and certainly worked for me. However they were focusing on the causes and treatment of cystitis and urethritis, but the antibiotics, they suggested, could also be used to treat prostatitis.

 

I hope this helps you and others here, but just be aware that I am not a medical professional, even though my son is, but the above is based on my decades of experience in this area and treatment by urologists in London, Auckland and Thailand, plus having all of the tests that you can imagine, and thousands of antibiotic pills of various types. 

Thank you for this detailed answer! I'll take this out of this thread and if you don't mind perhaps later contact you DM. regards.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, likerdup1 said:

Thank you for this detailed answer! I'll take this out of this thread and if you don't mind perhaps later contact you DM. regards.

No problems and by all means contact me via PM....happy to be of help if I can. Xylo

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Posted
2 hours ago, notrub said:

I see that postate problems can cause erectile disfunction.  Is there a solution please and what is it?  Thanks

i would take getting up 3 or 4 times a night for the toilet vs erectile disfunction and no ejaculation 

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Posted
9 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

i would take getting up 3 or 4 times a night for the toilet vs erectile disfunction and no ejaculation 

If one hasn't experienced interrupted sleep yet they might say that. Lack of sleep, sleep deprivation can be very dangerous to health especially for aged people. Uninterrupted sleep is very important in ones health. Especially in old age. Many problems stem from lack of sleep. Lately heart problems have been shown to develop from lack of sleep. Beware.

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Posted
5 hours ago, likerdup1 said:

If one hasn't experienced interrupted sleep yet they might say that. Lack of sleep, sleep deprivation can be very dangerous to health especially for aged people. Uninterrupted sleep is very important in ones health. Especially in old age. Many problems stem from lack of sleep. Lately heart problems have been shown to develop from lack of sleep. Beware.

i get up 2-3 times a night since my 30s i think, still get enough sleep. Sounds like the sleep problem maybe bigger than the prostate problem for many guys

Posted (edited)
On 4/15/2023 at 4:05 PM, KhunLA said:

If not mentioned already:

... " transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP)"

 

Friend had it done here/TH (Udon Thani), and said best decision he ever made  and regretted not having it done much earlier.

 

Google is your friend.

90% of turp are successful, I'm one, no problem Google is ur friend only those caught out will create repeatedly 

Btween humping and dumping.. urine... I'd go for dumping

Edited by Tiber
Posted
7 minutes ago, Tiber said:

90% of turp are successful, I'm one, no problem Google is ur friend only those caught out will create repeatedly 

Btween humping and dumping.. urine... I'd go for dumping

.................... would you fly on an airline that had a 10% chance of crashing and burning?

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Posted
20 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

.................... would you fly on an airline that had a 10% chance of crashing and burning?

So now we're crashing and dying it's turp, changed my life completely, best thing I ever did, cheap now 506 quid somewhere I read 

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Posted
17 hours ago, likerdup1 said:
On 4/16/2023 at 1:18 PM, scubascuba3 said:

i would take getting up 3 or 4 times a night for the toilet vs erectile disfunction and no ejaculation 

 

17 hours ago, likerdup1 said:

If one hasn't experienced interrupted sleep yet they might say that. Lack of sleep, sleep deprivation can be very dangerous to health especially for aged people. Uninterrupted sleep is very important in ones health. Especially in old age. Many problems stem from lack of sleep. Lately heart problems have been shown to develop from lack of sleep. Beware.

I am not ready for any invasive treatment just yet, but night time urination was becoming a serious issue with me. I would often be up every 90 minutes. Not good as @likerdup1 says, not good at all. But I solved the issue quite easily by adopting the 'intermittent catheter' routine. 

 

Using a single use catheter I now completely void my bladder just before I turn in for the night and now I often go for 4 to 5 hours without tramping off to the bathroom. I back this routine up by not taking in any fluids after 6pm and alcohol is off the table completely. That's not a big issue with me. I don't miss it at all.

 

It's been so successful that I now use this routine if I'm going out for a few hours. It's great not to be hunting for the WC wherever I go. And no dribbles. Yippee!

 

At 15 baht a pop, they are really, really worth it.

Posted
1 hour ago, Moonlover said:

Using a single use catheter I now completely void my bladder just before I turn in for the night and now I often go for 4 to 5 hours without tramping off to the bathroom. I back this routine up by not taking in any fluids after 6pm and alcohol is off the table completely. That's not a big issue with me. I don't miss it at all.

That's pretty much my routine Moonlover, whereby I empty the bladder via a catheter at around 11 PM before I turn in for the night, and I can sleep right through until 9 o'clock in the morning.

 

The urologist at Bumrungrad recommended that I use a catheter, and that I should try and keep the fluid in the bladder down to 400 ml and below, but very difficult to do that unless I self cath two or three times a day, which I'm not prepared to do.

 

So like you I try and keep the fluids down during the day, although I will not forsake my half bottle of wine and a glass of port in the evening (bad boy, I know) with my meal, but I do get by with the occasional dribble during the day which probably takes the pressure off the bladder, not that I can feel it anyway.

 

Just today I got his report out of the drawer and studied it in more depth and did some more Internet research and have come across a tablet which is supposed to assist the bladder to regain elasticity/feeling, so I'm going to do a little research and contact him to see if I can get onto that for a trial period.
 

Posted (edited)
56 minutes ago, xylophone said:

That's pretty much my routine Moonlover, whereby I empty the bladder via a catheter at around 11 PM before I turn in for the night, and I can sleep right through until 9 o'clock in the morning.

 

The urologist at Bumrungrad recommended that I use a catheter, and that I should try and keep the fluid in the bladder down to 400 ml and below, but very difficult to do that unless I self cath two or three times a day, which I'm not prepared to do.

 

So like you I try and keep the fluids down during the day, although I will not forsake my half bottle of wine and a glass of port in the evening (bad boy, I know) with my meal, but I do get by with the occasional dribble during the day which probably takes the pressure off the bladder, not that I can feel it anyway.

 

Just today I got his report out of the drawer and studied it in more depth and did some more Internet research and have come across a tablet which is supposed to assist the bladder to regain elasticity/feeling, so I'm going to do a little research and contact him to see if I can get onto that for a trial period.
 

Nice to hear from you Xylophone, I do recall you mentioning self cathing a day or two back.

 

I do feel that the urologist's advise regarding the bladder is sound. Although I have occasionally discharged a full 700ml, my feeling is that having the the bladder that full over a long period of time puts extra pressure on the kidneys. And a kidney issue is definitely something to be avoided! So I would rather make that extra bathroom visit.

 

I keep a log of my catheter discharges and my average output is 395ml which I feel comfortable with. I can now feel if I'm getting a bit too bloated and will usually head straight out for a walk. I can usually take the pressure off that way. I live in the country so I can stop and dribble wherever I like.

 

Glad to see that you're still enjoying a wee drop. My nightly comfort glass was whiskey/soda, but I had to quit that as it became obvious that it was causing issues. I might just try it again now that I've settled into this new routine.

 

You're lucky by the way. When I asked our local (and only) urologist what self help I could utilize, he just clamed up. It seems that patients who wish to participate in their own treatment are not to his liking.

 

Thanks for your very interesting posts.

Edited by Moonlover
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