The life cycle of a prostate problem

A man in his late fifties starts to feel pain while going to the toilet to urinate, at first he dismisses it but after a short time the pain becomes worse and it bothers him greatly.

He makes an appointment to see his local doctor and has an appointment a few days away, over these few days things become worse as he finds it increasingly difficult to pass urine when he goes toilet, no matter how hard he tries.

The day comes for the man to visit the doctor and he is happy as the problem is really getting him down because he is worried and it is affecting his home life.

The man travels to his doctors and waits patiently in the waiting area, his name is called and he makes the short journey into the doctor’s office where he explains the issue.

The doctor being quite a good physician checks over the man and decides to conduct a digital rectal examination, he puts on a rubber glove and asks the man to bend over slightly with his trousers and pants pulled down. The doctor then uses lubricant before putting a finger in to the anus of the man to feel the wall of the rectum, this is done as the prostate is located on the other side and the doctor can feel the prostate through the wall of the rectum.

It didn’t take long before the doctor removes his finger and asks the man to put his trousers back on, he sits the man down after removing the gloves and advises him that he has found some abnormal enlargement and he requires some blood tests to be carried out.

The man goes to see the nurse and has a blood test taken, the doctor had advised him that this was to rule out cancer. The blood test is tested for prostate specific antigen levels; those with levels above 4 nanograms per milliliter are at risk of prostate cancer. The results come back and it shows only 3.5 nanograms per milliliter and the doctor is happy that cancer can be ruled out; the diagnosis comes back as benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Benign prostatic hyperplasia is the swelling of the prostate, this is normally found in the older generation of males and is normally noticed when the prostate gets so big that it constricts the tube carrying urine (the urethra) making it difficult to go toilet.

The first treatment the doctor puts the man on is a course of medication to suppress the symptoms but this was found to not be very effective so the doctor puts the man forward for tranurethral resection of prostate surgery.

The man turns up for his surgery when told to and is nervous about what lays ahead. The hospital staff try to comfort him until the time he is taken into the operating theatre and the surgery starts.

The surgery takes a bit of time to complete and is carried out by removing part of the prostate gland through the urethra to keep the amount of incisions at its lowest.

The after affects of the surgery are astounding as the male feels no more symptoms of the condition and he is allowed to live a normal life, for now.