Home Doctor: Practical Medicine for Every Household
Treatment: If the prostate is enlarged and the person is losing urine due to overflow, it is important to notify a specialist. Although there are medical treatments for prostate shrinkage, this problem usually requires surgery. It would not be responsible on my side to recommend a medication since each case must be evaluated individually as these are drugs that have other effects. You have to be very careful with their use. However, there are natural remedies that you can use both to reduce the size of the gland and to prevent its growth: 1. Beta-sitosterol supplements This component is extracted from plants and seeds to be mixed in a single supplement. Both scientific evidence and patient testimonials agree that it works to improve urinary symptoms. The dose is one capsule twice a day. 2. Saw palmetto, zinc, pygeum africanum, multivitamin blend supplements All these natural extracts, as well as zinc and vitamins, have shown beneficial results in patients with urinary symptoms due to prostate enlargement. The recommended dose is one tablet twice a day. 3. Changes in lifestyle Reducing caffeine and alcohol intake and setting aside time for stress reduction practices such as meditation help control urinary symptoms and improve prostate inflammation.
Straining to Urinate Urination difficulties can have causes ranging from neurological, involving the brain’s communication pathways, to local, such as bladder lithiasis. Systemic causes are usually due to diseases of other organs. Thus, there may be difficulty in urinating in the patient with a stroke. At this point, I want to focus mainly on local causes that can cause acute urinary retention, which is an emergency that requires procedures that can be performed at home without major complications.
Acute Urinary Retention This is a fairly common condition that, as a surgeon in my residency program, I used to see very often since one of the effects that general anesthesia has on some people is the retention of urine. Procedures such as internal hemorrhoid surgery, hysterectomy, or pelvic and rectal surgery can cause this symptom for the patient due to the manipulation of the nerves in that area. In the case of men, specifically those over 50 years of age and those who have previously had urinary symptoms such as post-void dribbling and incomplete urination, we should think that the problem is likely that the size of the prostate is blocking the passage of urine. In patients with acute urinary retention, a mass can be seen below the navel, which is the completely full and distended bladder. The bladder must be emptied promptly as the urine can become contaminated and infect the patient. In addition, it can cause damage to the bladder wall and to the ureters and kidneys. 178
