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Prostate Problem Guide
Prostate Problem Symptoms - The Signs To Look For
There are often very few, if any, symptoms at all when prostate problems first arise and this creates a major difficulty as many men do not even realize that anything is wrong until their prostate problem is well advanced.
The initial signs of a problem are frequently detected during a routine medical examination by your physician, as a growing number of doctors are now routinely carrying out a simple blood test, know as a prostate specific antigen test, or PSA test, for patients over the age of 40. Not all physicians are however doing this and so there are still many men for whom even a routine medical examination will not spot the presence of a problem.
Whether you are screened or not however the problem will nonetheless show up at some point as prostate problem symptoms slowly begin to appear.
One of the first prostate problem symptoms to appear will be the need to visit the bathroom more often and possibly difficulty in maintaining a strong and steady flow or urine. You may also find that it is difficult to begin urinating and you might have to strain to start the flow of urine. You may also experience some mild pain when urinating.
As problems continue to develop you'll find that you have to get up more and more to visit the bathroom during the night and may find urination becoming increasingly difficult and possibly painful. You may also see some signs of blood in the urine.
ANDROGEN: a hormone which is responsible for male characteristics and the development and function of male sexual organs (e.g. testosterone) produced mainly by the testicles but also in the cortex of the adrenal glands; androgens have far reaching effects on blood formation, muscle and bone mass, cognitive function, emotional lability, skin and hair, etc.
DIPLOID: having one complete set of normally paired chromosomes, i.e., a normal amount of DNA; diploid cancer cells tend to grow slowly and respond well to hormone therapy; a diploid number of chromosomes would equal 46, a haploid set would equal 23.
MULTILEAF COLLIMATOR (MLC): A type of collimator that can define irregularly shaped radiation fields. An MLC has two rows of narrow metal blocks (leaves) that can be independently driven in or out of the radiation beam from opposite sides under computer control.
TRANSITION: change; for example, the transition zone of the prostate is the area of the prostate closest to the urethra and has features that distinguish it from the much larger peripheral zone.
The presence of prostate problems can also affect your sexual experience and you may find it difficult to get and to maintain an erection. Ejaculation might also become painful and blood could start to appear in your semen.
At this point these prostate problem symptoms mean that something is clearly wrong, but don't necessarily point to prostate cancer as being the cause. Indeed, in the majority of cases these symptoms will stem from an enlargement of the prostate gland which is a condition often referred to as benign prostatic hyperplasia, or bph. This condition can usually be treated without any great difficulty, although naturally treatment becomes increasingly difficult if the problem is left unattended for any length of time.
The true problem however lies in the fact that these symptoms can also be caused by prostate cancer and, while this is a curable condition if it is caught early enough, once cancer starts to spread beyond the prostate gland, treatment becomes increasingly difficult. Indeed, should the cancer spread to other areas of the body, it may not be possible to cure the disease and treatment is then simply a case of slowing the progression of the disease and managing its symptoms.
Prostate problem symptoms are all too often ignored by men who simply put them down to being part of the normal process of aging and something that we simply have to learn to live with. This is not helped by that fact that early symptoms are often quite mild and it is not too hard to live with them without any significant disruption to day to day life.
Nonetheless, prostate cancer kills a huge number of men each year and a substantial number of these deaths could easily be prevented if more men were screened or visited their physician even though their symptoms are mild.
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