The Things I Failed to Ask Before Prostate Surgery
A supposedly safe and effective minor surgical procedure did not fix my problem for very long
Like most men over 65, I have been dealing with symptoms of an enlarged prostate gland for a few years now. Two years ago, I tried medications, but they all had undesirable side effects. My urologist convinced me to undergo a UroLift procedure. My prostate gland itself was not overly big. But lobes of it were enlarging and preventing good urine flow down the urethra and out of my penis. These symptoms were difficulty starting a urinary stream, a long time to emptying my bladder, and dribbling of urine after peeing, to name just a few. In the urology world, this constellation of symptoms is called LUTS, short for lower urinary tract symptoms. Most men with these symptoms have a grossly enlarged prostate, and medications and other procedures may help them.
Urolift is unique because it doesn’t cause sexual dysfunction after other procedures, such as a TURP (Trans Urethral Resection of the Prostate) or HoLEP, a surgical laser operation. The field of Urology possesses quite a few acronyms for their procedures to treat enlarged prostates. The alphabet soup includes PVP, TUNA, and FLA-BPH, to name just a few. BPH (or benign prostatic hypertrophy) and LUTS affect about one-third of men…
