What Are The Symptoms Of Prostate Cancer
Early-stage prostate cancer rarely causes symptoms. These problems may occur as the disease progresses:
- Frequent, sometimes urgent, need to urinate, especially at night.
- Weak urine flow or flow that starts and stops.
- Painful urination .
- Painful ejaculation and erectile dysfunction .
- Blood in semen or urine.
- Lower back pain, hip pain and chest pain.
- Leg or feet numbness.
Prostate Problems Caused By Drinking Water
If you drink a lot of water, you might very well be creating prostate problems for yourself.
But, before we go further, let me just say I DO drink a lot of water each day myself. In fact, I drink over half my body weight in ounces and, that is something anyone with prostate problems or who wants to avoid prostate problems should do in my humble opinion.
But, at the same time, it can be dangerous.
Make your prostate GROW.
And even turn you into a girl!
How?
Well, it is not that water is bad.
Frankly, it is essential for your prostate health.
It is that the plastic bottles you get water in or storing that water in that is the main villain.
Turns out, plastic has estrogenic compounds in it.
What does that mean?
It means, you are ingesting lots and lots of estrogen which can give you girl-like features , cause fat gain and, even worse for guys like us, make our prostates blow up in size like a balloon.
The solution?
Personally, I am going to get a water filter.
I used to lug around these 5 gallons of water in plastic containers but am getting an under-the-counter water filter instead, and use glass jars to drink out of.
You may want to do the same.
At least, if you do not want a sex change.
Just something to consider about your prostate problems if you like to drink bottle water.
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How Can Bph Cause Renal Failure
Anything that gets in the way of urine leaving the body can lead to acute renal failure. Kidney stones or blood clots in the urinary tract can cause it. Prostate cancer or BPH can cause it as well.
Symptoms of BPH tend to get worse over time. In the most severe cases, BPH can lead to infection, bladder damage, or kidney damage. Its not common, but BPH can lead to renal failure. Thats why its important to seek treatment for BPH before it causes damage to your kidneys.
The good news is that most men with BPH dont develop kidney damage or renal failure.
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Inflammation Of The Prostate Gland
Bacteria sometimes cause prostatitis . More commonly, the underlying cause is uncertain. Consult your doctor promptly if you experience:
- fever
- pain in the groin
- urgent and frequent urination.
Treatment with antibiotics is essential for acute bacterial prostatitis. Admission to hospital is often necessary and, as with chronic bacterial prostatitis, specific antibacterial drugs are required for a long time.
Prostate Cancer Hormonal Therapy Tied To Kidney Risks
By Genevra Pittman, Reuters Health
4 Min Read
NEW YORK – Men who are treated for prostate cancer with hormone-targeted therapy have a higher risk of developing kidney problems, a new study suggests.
The treatment, known as androgen deprivation therapy, lowers the risk of death among men with advanced, aggressive prostate cancer.
However, researchers said its increasingly being used to treat possible recurrences among men with less advanced disease – for whom the benefits are less clear, and the risks more worrisome.
Our study does raise the concern that perhaps we should be more careful in prescribing androgen deprivation therapy in patients who do not have the clear indication for it, said Laurent Azoulay, who worked on the research at McGill University in Montreal.
Its all about the balance, finding the right population for which the benefits clearly outweigh the risks, he told Reuters Health.
Hormone-targeted treatment has been linked to a higher risk of diabetes and heart disease.
For their study, Azoulay and his colleagues used UK data on 10,250 men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1997 and 2008. The men were followed for an average of just over four years after their diagnosis.
During that time, 232 of them developed an acute kidney injury – a rapid drop in kidney function. The researchers compared those men to 2,721others from the study who were the same age and were not diagnosed with kidney problems.
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Questions You May Want To Consider Asking Your Doctor Include:
- What type of prostate problem do I have?
- Is more testing needed and what will it tell me?
- If I decide on watchful waiting, what changes in my symptoms should I look for and how often should I be tested?
- What type of treatment do you recommend for my prostate problem?
- For men like me, has this treatment worked?
- How soon would I need to start treatment and how long would it last?
- Do I need medicine and how long would I need to take it before seeing improvement in my symptoms?
- What are the side effects of the medicine?
- Are there other medicines that could interfere with this medication?
- If I need surgery, what are the benefits and risks?
- Would I have any side effects from surgery that could affect my quality of life?
- Are these side effects temporary or permanent?
- How long is recovery time after surgery?
- Will I be able to fully return to normal?
- How will this affect my sex life?
- How often should I visit the doctor to monitor my condition?
Related Resources
What Are The Side Effects Of Prostate Treatments
Surgery for BPH may have a temporary effect on sexual function. Most men recover complete sexual function within a year after surgery. The exact length of time depends on how long you had symptoms before surgery was done and on the type of surgery. After TURP, some men will find that semen does not go out of the penis during orgasm. Instead, it goes backwards into the bladder. In some cases, this condition can be treated with a drug that helps keep the bladder closed. A doctor who specializes in fertility problems may be able to help if this backwards ejaculation causes a problem for a couple trying to get pregnant.
If you have any problems after treatment for a prostate condition, talk with your doctor or nurse. Erection problems and loss of bladder control can be treated, and chances are good that you can be helped.
If your prostate is removed completely to stop cancer, you’re more likely to have long-lasting sexual and bladder control problems . Your doctor may be able to use a technique that leaves the nerves around the prostate in place. This makes it easier for you to regain bladder control and sexual function. Not all men can have this technique, but most men can be helped with other medical treatments.
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What Causes Sharp Pain In Right Kidney Capsule
Kidney infection or pyelonephritis which is common in all age groups, may also lead to this pain. The infection in the right kidney may cause inflammation of the kidney and can lead to stretching of the capsule. Severe injury can result in bleeding within the right kidney, which may cause sharp pain.
What Is The Prognosis For People Who Have Prostate Cancer
Because prostate cancer tends to grow slowly, most men die from something other than the disease. Early detection is key to better outcomes. Almost all men 97% to 98% diagnosed with localized cancer that hasnt spread outside of the prostate live at least five years after diagnosis. When metastatic cancer has spread outside of the gland, one-third of men continue to survive after five years.
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Short Term Side Effects
Patients who receive any type of radiation therapy to treat their prostate cancer can have side effects. Short term side effects are ones that start during or shortly after your radiation treatment. Below is a list of possible short term side effects. Treatments can affect each patient differently, and you may not have these particular side effects. Talk with your care team about what you can expect from your treatment
What Are Prostate Cancer Treatment Side Effects
Some prostate cancer treatments can affect the bladder, erectile nerves and sphincter muscle, which controls urination. Potential problems include:
- Incontinence: Some men experience urinary incontinence. You may leak urine when you cough or laugh, or you may feel an urgent need to use the bathroom even when your bladder isnt full. This problem can improve over the first six to 12 months without treatment.
- Erectile dysfunction : Surgery, radiation and other treatments can damage the erectile nerves and affect your ability to get or maintain an erection. Some men regain erectile function within a year or two . In the meantime, medications like sildenafil or tadalafil can help by increasing blood flow to the penis.
- Infertility: Treatments can affect your ability to produce or ejaculate sperm, resulting in male infertility. If you think you might want children in the future, you can preserve sperm in a sperm bank before you start treatments. After treatments, you may undergo sperm extraction. This procedure involves removing sperm directly from testicular tissue and implanting it into a womans uterus.
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Symptoms Of Advanced Prostate Cancer
The symptoms of advanced prostate cancer depend on where the cancer has spread to. Find out about the possible symptoms and when to see your doctor.
Advanced prostate cancer means that a cancer that began in the prostate gland has spread to another part of the body. If your cancer has spread you might:
- have bone pain
- have weight loss for no known reason
Review Looked At Side Effect From Androgen Deprivation Therapy
TUESDAY, July 16, 2013 — Hormone therapy for prostate cancer may dramatically increase a man’s risk of kidney failure, according to a new study.
Use of androgen deprivation therapy was tied to a 250 percent increase in a man’s chances of suffering acute kidney injury, Canadian researchers found in a review of more than 10,000 men receiving treatment for early stage prostate cancer.
The study appears in the July 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Androgen deprivation therapy uses medication or surgery to reduce the amount of male hormones in a man’s body, which can then cause prostate cancer cells to shrink or grow more slowly.
It is a therapy usually reserved for advanced cases of prostate cancer, said study co-author Laurent Azoulay, a pharmacoepidemiologist at Jewish General Hospital’s Lady Davis Institute, in Montreal. Previous research already has linked androgen deprivation therapy to a possible increased risk of heart attack.
These new findings tying hormone therapy to acute kidney injury — a rapid loss of kidney function with a 50 percent mortality rate — should prompt doctors to think twice before using androgen deprivation therapy to treat prostate cancer patients at little risk of dying from the disease, said Azoulay, also an assistant professor in McGill University’s department of oncology.
More information
The American Cancer Society has more about prostate cancer treatment.
Journal of the American Medical Association
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Doctor Does Too Much Sex Enlarge The Prostate
Prostate cancer is the commonest cancer in men. There are concerns on whether frequent sex contributes to the development of prostate enlargement in general and especially in the evolvement of prostate cancer.
The prostate gland is an important part of the male reproductive system. It is a major contributor to the formation of the seminal fluid that comes with ejaculation at the peak of sexual intercourse in males.
It produces nourishing materials, especially the sugary fructose, for the wellbeing of sperm cells. It is located just below the bladder where urine is stored, and in front of the rectum the last portion of the large intestine where the feces is stored.
Prostate enlargement: 100 for 100
In anatomical relationship, the prostate surrounds the tube that drains the urine from the urinary bladder, just as the tube is leaving the bladder.
A point of fact is that the prostate gland is destined to enlarge in all men as they get older, albeit at different rates in men of different extractions. Anyhow it goes, it is estimated with corroborative findings on autopsy that all men who lived up to 100 years had enlarged prostate a case of 100 for 100!
The good thing however is that most prostate enlargements are usually of no clinical consequence and are not problematic or symptomatic to the affected men since the prostate growth are mostly non-cancerous and non-strangulating.
Diagnosis Of Enlarged Prostate Gland And Urinary Problems
If you are troubled by urination problems, see a doctor no matter what your age. If your doctor agrees that your symptoms need further evaluation and treatment, you may need to undergo a few tests.These may include:
- general examination medical history and review of any health conditions including obesity, diabetes, obstructive sleep apnoea, depression and erectile dysfunction. A rectal examination may be done to check the size and shape of your prostate gland
- a urine check to ensure the prostate is not infected
- a flow-rate check to estimate the speed with which you pass urine
- an ultrasound examination to assess if the bladder is emptying completely and to examine your kidneys
- urodynamics a series of tests on the bladder to see how your urinary system is functioning may be recommended in some circumstances.
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What Is Prostate Enlargement Or Bph
If you’re a man over 50 and have started having problems urinating, the reason could be an enlarged prostate, or BPH. As men get older, their prostate keeps growing. As it grows, it squeezes the urethra. Since urine travels from the bladder through the urethra, the pressure from the enlarged prostate may affect bladder control.
If you have BPH, you may have one or more of these problems:
- A frequent and urgent need to urinate. You may get up several times a night to go to the bathroom.
- Trouble starting a urine stream. Even though you feel you have to rush to get to the bathroom, you find it hard to start urinating.
- A weak stream of urine.
- A small amount of urine each time you go.
- The feeling that you still have to go, even when you have just finished urinating.
- Leaking or dribbling.
- Small amounts of blood in your urine.
You may barely notice that you have one or two of these symptoms, or you may feel as though urination problems have taken over your life.
Are Prostate Problems Always A Sign Of Prostate Cancer
Not all growths in the prostate are cancerous, and not all prostate problems indicate cancer. Other conditions that cause similar prostate cancer symptoms include:
- Benign prostatic hyperplasia : At some point, almost every man will develop benign prostatic hyperplasia . This condition enlarges the prostate gland but doesnt increase cancer risk. The swollen gland squeezes the urethra and blocks the flow of semen and urine. Medications, and sometimes surgery, can help.
- Prostatitis: Men younger than 50 are more prone to prostatitis, inflammation and swelling of the prostate gland. Bacterial infections are often the cause. Treatments include antibiotics or other medications.
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Testing Options For Prostate Cancer
There is no one age for prostate cancer testing, but the American Cancer Society makes recommendations about screenings. According to the ACS, patients in any of these groups should consider asking their doctor about testing:
- Men age 50 or older who have an average risk of prostate cancer and a life expectancy of at least 10 more years
- Men age 45 or older with a high risk, including African-American men and those with a first-degree relative who had prostate cancer before age 65
- Men age 40 or older who have a higher risk, such as more than one first-degree relative diagnosed with prostate cancer at an early age
Recurrent Prostate Cancer Symptoms
Prostate cancer that returns after treatment is considered recurrent. When it returns to the area around the prostate, the disease is classified as a local recurrence. If the cancer is found in another part of the body, the recurrent cancer is considered metastatic. If the cancer metastasizes outside the prostate, it most likely develops in bones first. Metastatic prostate cancer most often spreads to the liver, bones and lungs.
After initial treatment for prostate cancer, PSA levels are expected to drop dramatically. The first sign of recurrent prostate cancer may be a rise in the PSA level. Other symptoms of recurrent cancer may depend on whether and where the cancer has spread. Symptoms include:
- Blood in the urine
- Difficulty breathing
- Jaundice
Patients should discuss any symptoms with their doctor and ask about scheduling regular PSA tests after treatment.
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What Are Symptoms Of Prostatitis
How you feel will help your doctor diagnose the type of prostatitis you have. Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome is an inflammation of the prostate and the nerves to this area. Pain from CP/CPPS can last for weeks to months. This is NOT an infection. Symptoms are:
- Trouble passing urine
- Pain in and around the bladder, testicles, penis and/or anus
- Pain with ejaculation
Chronic Bacterial Prostatitis is from bacteria and is less common. It is known to come and go over a long period of time at least three months. Symptoms can be:
- A burning feeling while passing urine
- The need to pass urine often
- Pain in and around the bladder, testicles, penis and/or anus
- Pain with ejaculation
Acute Bacterial Prostatitis is also from bacteria and is less common. Symptoms for this problem can begin suddenly and can be very painful. Men should get medical care right away. Symptoms include:
- Chills
- Very painful burning while passing urine
- Trouble draining the bladder
Nonbacterial Prostatitis may be from stress, nerve irritation, injuries or past urinary tract infections. This form of prostatitis has no signs of bacteria in the urine or semen.