John T said...
Casper,
BPH is when the prostate is enlarged,mostly due to age. If severe it can restrict urine flow, but otherwise is not dangerous. Prostate infections sometimes have no symptoms,and can last for long periods. Many infections are discovered through biopsies by examining tissues under microscopes. A good next step would be a course of antibiotics to see if psa reduces.
Hi John T.
Yes, that is the problem that I had when first diagnosed as having an enlarged prostate. I found that I had to wee about
every half hour and 4-5 times at night. My doctor put me on the alpha blocker “Tamsulosin” and after a couple of months the problem went away, but I still take the “Tamsulosin” so that the problem wont return. I have found a very good article on prostatitis on “urologyhealth.og” and apart from treating the condition with antibiotics as you have said, it also suggests “Tamsulosin” It would appear that prostatitis is a very similar animal as PC with regard to symptoms and just as difficult to treat in some cases. There are several types of prostatitis and often it cannot be successfully treated, with flair-up's returning throughout the mans life. “You have it so live with it” so to speak. In very rare cases they will even remove the prostate, just as they do with PC. Depending on what type of prostatitis you have you may have no symptoms whatsoever! On the other hand you can have the symptoms that I mentioned above. I told you that I have no symptoms, but as I have already been taking Tamsulosin for some time then any symptoms may be getting masked by that drug. It can be very difficult to detect and as you say a biopsy is probably the best plan of action. I am hopeful that this is the case for me, because about
three months ago I had various pain ranging from my perineal and testicular areas that came and went. More importantly I also had pain deep in my penis at the tip. You could squeeze the penis but the level of pain did not change. It was more like a dull ache than true pain. That lasted for about
two weeks, then it went. I never went to my doctor at that time, but after reading about
prostatitis I have found it to be one of the classic symptoms. As you also point out, a sudden rise in PSA is also one of the symptoms. I am hopeful that when I have my biopsy they find I have prostatitis. I would rather have to live with that long-term than PC. It sounds like the prostate is a faulty component. If we were cars the manufacturer would do a product recall
..............God, are you listening?
Thanks very much for your advice. It has certainly given me hope for a more positive outcome.