Getting to Know Your Prostate and the Problems that can Occur
The prostate is part of the male sex organs. It is a small gland, about the size of a walnut. The gland surrounds the urethra. The urethra carries urine and also semen during ejaculation. During puberty the prostate gland grows a lot. It also begins to grow again after a man turns 40. In some men the prostate continues to grow. Approximate half of men who have prostates that continue to grow have no symptoms and the other have may experience an enlarged prostate that is bothersome, prostatitis or prostate cancer. Some men experience more than one of these prostate problems.
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is the medical term for an enlarged prostate. An enlarged prostate is a non-cancerous problem associated with the prostate gland. An enlarged prostate is the most common of all health problems faced by males. Between the ages of 50 and 60 half of all men will experience enlarged prostate. By the time they reach 80 these men will start to experience symptoms caused by the enlarged prostates. Some of the symptoms can be quite uncomfortable such as having frequent urination, a weak urine stream, difficulty starting to urinate and not being able to completely empty the bladder. Symptoms can interfere with getting a good night’s rest because a man with an enlarged prostate could get up as many as six times during the night. An enlarged prostate can also lead to incontinence, bladder stones, kidney infections and damage to the bladder, urethra and kidneys.
A man with BPH may have frequent urgent urges to urinate, strains or pushes to get the urine to flow, experiences dribbling or leaking after urinating and have a slow flow of urine.
A male can also experience prostatitis, which is an inflammation of the prostate that can be caused by a bacterial infection but more commonly by a non-bacterial infection. In fact, there are three types of prostatitis including bacterial prostatitis, nonbacterial prostatitis, and prostatodynia. A man with bacterial prostatitis may have a fever, experience chills, have pain in his lower back, have aching muscles, experience fatigue and have frequent or painful urination.
A man with nonbacterial prostatitis may have discomfort in his testicles, urethra, lower abdomen or back and may have a discharge from his urethra and have blood in his urine. He may have a low sperm count have sexual difficulties and have frequent urination.
A man experiencing prostatodynia may have had a recent bladder infection, have BPH, gonorrhea, chlamydia or other sexually transmitted diseases, have frequent unprotected sex, sex with multiple partners, consume excessive amounts of alcohol, eat a lot of spicy or marinated foods and have suffered an injury to the lower pelvis.
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