The Causes of an Enlarged Prostate

An enlarged prostate is one of the most common ailments among men in there sixties and later. Generally when men reach there forties their prostate begins to enlarge, an enlarged prostate can become bothersome and lead to health complications. The symptoms of an enlarged prostate mainly affect your urinary track; the reason for this is because the prostate is a gland that surrounds the urethra, as it enlarges it can crush in on the urethra causing urination problems. The major symptoms caused by an enlarged prostate are, but not limited too, the following. A weak or slow stream of urine as you begin or finish urinating, or if you have trouble starting or stopping the urination stream. If after urination you continue to leak urine and if your bathroom breaks become more and more frequent especially at night. A trace of blood in the urine is also another sign of an enlarged prostate, and can be the sign of other ailments as well. If any of these symptoms begin to show it is recommended that you seek medical advice.

If you do have an enlarged prostate your doctor may wish to wait and see how it progresses first, if it’s not causing any pain or complications nothing may need to be done. If complications or severe problems due arise there are a couple of methods in which to treat an enlarged prostate. One is simply my medicating the problem, and branch of medicines called alpha-blockers can help to relax the prostate and alleviate the symptoms with no further treatment needed. Another medication actually works to shrink the prostate back down to a size that isn’t causing problems. Another option is the surgical route, as with the medications there are a couple different surgical procedures that can help. One surgical procedure is called transurethral recession of the prostate, or TURPS, what this consists of is the removal of portions of the prostate, usually the innermost core that surrounds the urethra, another method is the actual cutting of the prostate, both help to alleviate symptoms caused by the enlarged prostate. Another newer method uses microwaves to heat up and destroy the enlarged tissue, this method has less risk factors then the TURPS method.