Prostate Health Management Program

There has never been a universal "maintenance recipe" for prostate health. All management plans must be accurately adjusted according to age, symptoms, and test results. For those 20-40 years old, priority should be given to preventing chronic prostatitis, and don't take random medicines. For those 40-60 years old, focus on benign hyperplasia, and do a PSA + digital rectal examination once a year. No excessive intervention is needed for mild to moderate cases, and don't force it on severe cases. For those over 60 years old, focus on screening for prostate cancer. Don't trust folk remedies. All decisions are based on the examination results of regular hospitals.

I just met a 28-year-old programmer at the outpatient clinic last week. He worked on a project for three consecutive days. During his overtime break, he and his colleagues went to eat spicy hot pot with cold beer. When he got home, he started to urinate frequently and urgently, and his lower abdomen dropped. He searched for a long time and bought levofloxacin. He took it for half a month, but the symptoms became worse. When he came in for consultation, his face turned red, and he asked if the root cause of the disease was in his life. In fact, his condition is a typical case of chronic non-bacterial prostatitis. 90% of young people who get this disease have nothing to do with bacterial infection. It is because sitting for a long time, holding back urine, and spicy stimulation have caused the prostate to become congested and edematous. Taking antibiotics is not correct at all. I went back and changed my schedule. I got up and walked two steps every 40 minutes. I was prescribed some medicine to relieve symptoms. I came back for a follow-up visit in two weeks and said everything was fine.

Speaking of this, some people must be arguing. I saw some doctors on the Internet saying that prostatitis requires complete abstinence, otherwise the congestion will become more serious. Some doctors said that regular ejaculation is the best way to cure prostatitis. Who do you listen to? In fact, both views have basis, and no one is right or wrong: If it is an acute bacterial prostatitis attack, the pain is so painful that you can’t stand still, and you still have a fever, you must avoid irritation and wait until the inflammation is under control; but it accounts for more than 90% of the total proportion of prostatitis. For chronic non-bacterial prostatitis, evidence-based medicine now supports regular ejaculation 1-2 times a week, which can bring out the blocked prostatic fluid and relieve the feeling of swelling. There is no need to hold it in, but it will cause psychological pressure and make the symptoms more difficult to resolve. Oh, by the way, there are also private institutions that always ask you to perform prostate perfusion and ablation. Don’t go there. Not to mention the cost, it is easy to cause irreversible damage to the prostate. I have met several patients who had repeated infections after perfusion, and it took more than half a year to get rid of it.

If young people’s prostate problems are mostly caused by themselves, then the benign prostatic hyperplasia encountered by friends over 40 years old is more or less due to the inevitability brought about by age. A few days ago, a 46-year-old brother came for a follow-up consultation. He said that he had heard from a friend that surgery for hyperplasia would affect sexual function. He had been trying to deal with it for three years. Now he wakes up five times a night. He has to calculate the location of the service area in advance when driving on the highway. He comes here because he can't bear it anymore. In fact, the intervention for hyperplasia has long been very flexible. First, make an IPSS symptom score. If it is below 7 points, you don’t even need to take medicine. Drink less water after 8 pm, don’t drink strong tea and coffee, and don’t sit on the cold bench outside in winter. You can basically live a comfortable life; If the score reaches 15 or above, it has obviously affected your life. You should take medicine and undergo surgery. The current thulium laser enucleation surgery is minimally invasive, and the probability of affecting sexual function is less than 5%. The benefits far outweigh the possible risks. There is really no need to bear it.

After the age of 60, the most important thing is to prevent prostate cancer. Don’t be scared to sleep when you see a high PSA (prostate specific antigen) in the physical examination report, and don’t take it seriously. A high PSA does not necessarily mean cancer. Having sex the day before, having just had a digital rectal examination, or even having some inflammation of the prostate will cause the indicator to rise. Generally, a comprehensive judgment must be made based on the free PSA ratio and the results of prostate magnetic resonance. If necessary, a puncture can be done to confirm the diagnosis. I once had an old patient who had been diagnosed with high PSA during a physical examination but ignored it for 3 years and said he had no symptoms. However, when he came back for a checkup last year, it turned out that he had advanced prostate cancer. If intervention had occurred two or three years earlier, clinical cure could basically be achieved. Now he can only rely on endocrine therapy to control it. It is a pity.

Some people must still ask, are the levator exercise, lycopene, and pumpkin seeds uploaded online useful? There is no standard answer to this, and the views of different doctors vary greatly: Some colleagues around me believe that the levator ani can improve the pelvic floor muscle tension and is very effective in relieving symptoms of bloating and frequent urination. Others believe that the levator anus has no therapeutic effect on hyperplasia and inflammation, so there is no need to deify it. My point of view is, if you have time, do it, 10 minutes each time, twice a day, there is no harm in doing it, but don’t make it look like you are completing the KPI, which will make you anxious - to be honest, anxiety has a greater impact on the prostate than sitting for half an hour. As for lycopene and pumpkin seeds, it's okay to eat them as snacks, and there's no harm in supplementing with some vitamins, but if you expect to eat them instead of taking medicine or checking up, it's just a waste of time.

To put it bluntly, the prostate is a delicate little gland on the male body, similar to your throat. It can cause a tantrum if you eat too much, eat spicy food, or get cold. If there is a problem, it is not difficult to hide it. It only costs more than ten yuan to register at the urology department of a regular hospital. Don’t scare yourself by searching for it, and don’t randomly look for folk remedies. It’s better than anything else.