Enlarged Prostate

persianchick99 asked:


I did not know what to make of this mornings news. A mixture of emptiness (not knowing what to think) and shock still pains my insides. My childhood crush, who I haven’t seen in over 2 years is possibly dying from prostate cancer. It has spread to his stomach.
I would like to ask if it is common among young men (20),
and if genetics plays a major role?
(He’s father died of prostate cancer before he was born.)
Does he have any chances of survival?

Lareyna asked:


My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer 2 years ago. Now the doc says he has lesions on his ribs and spine. What should I expect as far as how long he will live and what kind of treatments are out there?

Cindy Heller asked:


Prostate cancer affects the prostate, which is a gland in the male reproductive system. The cancer cells may then spread to various parts of the body, especially the bones and lymph nodes. Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer in male. If detected early, prostate cancer can be effectively treated. However, advance prostate cancer is usually fatal. Hence, it is critical for men in the high risk group to be screened for prostate cancer regularly.

Most men have no problems with their prostate gland before the age of forty. Many will then start to develop enlarged prostate as they age. This prostate problem is not usually serious although the symptoms are annoying and inconvenient. The prostate enlarges and squeezes the urethra which carries urine from the bladder. When the urethra is squeezed by the enlarging prostate gland, there will be constant urge to urinate. The other symptoms are inability to control the urination process, the start, the stop and a weak flow of urine.

An enlarged prostate is not necessarily a sign of prostate cancer although the warning signs of prostate cancer are similar to that of an enlarged prostate. Hence, it is prudent to test for prostate cancer when you have symptoms of an enlarged prostate.

The symptoms of prostate cancer include difficulty with urinating and ejaculation, blood in the urine or semen and pain in the lower body region.

However, you should know that you may have prostate cancer but not be experiencing any signs and symptoms. So just because you feel fine and healthy, it may not mean that you are, and so regardless of how you feel, you still need to get regular prostate check up, especially after the age of forty.

All Prostate Cancer Warning Signs Should Be Investigated Quickly

Some prostate cancer warning signs are the same as those of less serious diseases. However, all prostate cancer warning signs should be investigated promptly and thoroughly, especially for men in their fifties. These warning signs are the subtle evidence of the serious disease. Prostate cancer is a slow growing cancer with no obvious surface signs. When the tumor is sizeable, symptoms will manifest. These symptoms include frequent urges to urinate, difficulty in urinating, and a weak flow of urine when urinating.

The prostate cancer warning signs are also shown during sexual intercourse when a man has trouble with erection. Blood in the urine is another sign of prostate cancer. A stiff back, hips or thighs might be due to the growing prostate cancer. All these problems should be promptly investigated as possible indication of prostate cancer. As the cancer progresses, there will be more obvious warning signs but it may be too late by then.

Paul Rodgers asked:


It has been said that “most men die with prostate cancer, not of it”. Autopsy studies have shown that a high proportion of men who have died in other ways, have prostate cancer when the prostate is examined under a microscope. Thus screening may tend to detect cancers that would not have killed the patient or even been detected prior to death from other causes.An important way to take an active role in making decisions about supporting your prostate cancer treatment is to be as informed as possible. Learn all you want to know about prevention, treatment and living with prostate cancer. Although early-stage prostate cancer typically isn’t painful, once it’s spread to bones it can be.

Deciding the best prostate cancer treatment is a challenge. Prostatectomy is the removal of the prostate by surgical incisions in abdomen or perineum, or small incisions and laparoscope use. Radical prostatectomy is the removal of the entire prostate gland and possibly the seminal vesicles and surrounding nerves and veins. Although technically well done, radiation therapy may not be the answer or at least the whole answer to prostate cancer treatment and survival.

All prostate cancer treatments affect sexual potency. Complications from prostate cancer are related to both the disease and its treatment. Many men may feel depressed after a diagnosis of prostate cancer or after trying to cope with the side effects of treatment.

Prostate Cancer Treatment

Treatment options include radiation therapy (either through an external beam or radioactive seed implants), surgery, hormone therapy and watchful waiting. Selecting the right treatment for prostate cancer depends on many factors, including your husband’s overall health, his age, the aggressiveness of his prostate cancer, and how he feels about the potential side effects. One of the biggest fears of many men who have prostate cancer is that treatment may leave them incontinent or unable to maintain an erection firm enough for sex (erectile dysfunction).

Male Urinary Incontinence

Male incontinence is relatively unusual, and is always associated with some sort of bladder or prostate disease. Yes, more than 330,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, and many will require prostate surgery, the leading cause of incontinence in men. Stress incontinence may develop when a man’s prostate gland is removed and there has been dysfunction of or damage to the nerves or the sphincter, resulting in inadequate support for the lower bladder (bladder neck). Most men do not have trouble with incontinence for more than a few days or a few weeks after a transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP). When a radical prostatectomy is performed to remove a cancerous prostate, the possibility of incontinence is greater.

Muscle-strengthening Exercises

The ability to fill and store urine properly requires a functional sphincter (the circular muscles around the opening of the bladder) and a stable, expandable bladder wall muscle (detrusor). Stress incontinence is a bladder storage problem in which the strength of the muscles (urethral sphincter) that help control urination is reduced. Exercises to strengthen the muscles which support your bladder neck (with or without the help of devices like electrical stimulation, biofeedback, or exercise cones) may be prescribed if your symptoms point to stress urinary incontinence. Muscle-strengthening exercises (called Kegel exercises or pelvic floor exercises) can be very helpful in treating bowel incontinence. These are performed by contracting the large muscles that make up the pelvic floor. When the pelvic muscles are contracted they send a message to the bladder muscle to relax.

Biofeedback And Electrical Stimulation

Biofeedback and electrical stimulation may be helpful for those who have trouble doing pelvic muscle training exercises. Biofeedback uses electrodes placed on the pelvic floor muscles, giving you feedback about when they are contracted and when they are not. Biofeedback and electrical stimulation will no longer be necessary once you have identified the pelvic floor muscles and mastered the exercises on your own. Newer techniques are being investigated, including one that uses a specially designed electromagnetic chair that causes the pelvic floor muscles to contract when the patient is seated.

Medications

Medications that may be prescribed include drugs that relax the bladder, increase bladder muscle tone, or strengthen the sphincter. Other medications such as diuretics, muscle relaxants, and blood pressure medication can also affect bladder function. Other medications, including flurbiprofen, capsaicin and botulinum toxin, are sometimes prescribed to relax the bladder muscles or to tighten the urethral sphincter. One of these drugs, duloxetine, differs from present medications in targeting the central nervous system’s control of the urge to urinate rather than the smooth muscle of the bladder itself.

Marlon Dirk asked:


In the event that you are unfamiliar with what prostate cancer is, it is the abnormal growth of all of the cells within the prostate gland, the prostate gland is considered to be a major part of the male reproductive system. The prostate cancer symptoms may or may not occur within men that are suffering from this condition. Since prostate cancer is a type of cancer that develops slowly, there are some men that have the disease that may not even realize it.

Within the early stages of prostate cancer, the prostate cancer symptoms aren’t evident. Relatively speaking, the screening process for prostate cancer is simple to perform, with a PSA test and a prostate examination annually. The majority of patients that have prostate cancer are going to be identified and with a high chance of finding a cure relatively. Overall, screening for all of these diseases is just a fact of modern day medicine.

In relationship to prostate cancer, this issue is rather complex, because the overall benefit to all of the patients is very far from being completely clear. A screening is performed before you ever have any of the symptoms of cancer, just to test to see if the cancer is present. When a screening test is performed, it can normally find cancer in its early stages.

All of the prostate cancer symptoms are the essential key to determining whether or not an individual is at risk for developing prostate cancer. With all of the early self-diagnosis, one will be able to create a detour completely away from prostate cancer’s deadly route. Prostate cancer symptoms within their early stages can reflect characteristics such as urinary incontinence and difficulties.

Often, there are men that experience frequent urination, even though the amount of urine that is passed is quiet small. Often, the urinary incontinence follows menopause or childbirth. Prostatic or urine fluid cytology could reveal some cells that look rather unusual. You should also take into consideration that all of the experts report that the PSA tests aren’t reliable any that they are searching for all of the better ways that they can diagnose prostate cancer.

Prostatic or urine fluid cytology could reveal some rather unusual cells. One of the other tests that are normally performed when all of the prostate cancer symptoms are present is the DRE or digital rectal exam which is performed by the oncologist, proctologist, and doctor. All of the blood within the urine is normally a symptom of something other than the prostate cancer.

However, within individuals that do have the prostate cancer, a presence of blood within the urine could be an indicator that the condition has advanced or either it has spread from the prostate and on into the urethra or bladder. Normally, the blood tests will confirm this diagnosis.