What to Do About an Enlarged Prostate

Sphere: Related Content
An enlarged prostate gland is one of the first and most recognizable medical symptoms of encroaching prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is one of the most lethal diseases in older men in the United States – the cancer is made even more lethal by the fact that it’s often not spotted until it’s too far advanced for treatment to be guaranteed to work. The best way to make sure prostate cancer treatment can work is to go to a physician and regularly check for an enlarged prostate with a PSA test. If this is done, the chances of detecting prostate cancer early are increased

An enlarged prostate can cause several problems on its own even without cancer symptoms. Because the prostate is situated against the bladder, when it enlarges it can press against the bladder, making the need to urinate occur more often. Also, it affects ejaculation. The prostate is responsible for control of ejaculation and urination mainly. It also can compress the urethra, making it more difficult to urinate. The prostate, when infected, can also stretch and rupture rectal tissue or tissue in the urethra, causing the man to urinate or defecate bloody excrement.

How to Use Tests to Check for Enlarged Prostate

The PSA, or prostate specific antigen test, is used to detect the presence of the enzyme that liquefies semen after ejaculation making it easier to navigate through the cervix. To test for PSA, a biopsy is taken of the prostate, and a level of PSA is gauged. Usually, from 4 – 10 nanograms per milliliter are a standard level of PSA. If there’s less than this level, it’s generally a sign of an enlarged prostate. However, this isn’t always accurate – in fact, scientists are questioning the validity of this method, as it can bound to other proteins and not really detectable.

Prostate cancer surgery or radiation treatment can be used to treat n enlarged prostate, either by destroying any of the cancer-infested cells, or by simply cutting away the infected portion to prevent it from blocking off the urinary or rectal tracts.

An enlarged prostate can be detected early on only be regular checks and visits with a physician. To prevent problems without needing to have regular visits is to live a low-stress lifestyle and have a healthy diet. Also it’s commonly thought that frequent ejaculation is linked to preventing prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is deadly, but it can easily be prevented if the right steps are taken.
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Labels: , , , , , , ,

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)