Living with BPH/Enlarged Prostate

Reading the BPH-related experiences on this site (and a couple other sites) has been informative for me. I appreciate all those that have posted over the years. To help others gather info as I did, I’m posting the events that led to me having a TURP on Dec 9.

I’m 64 and my prostate was 78 grams. I’ve been on Flomax 2 years (increased to double dose 10 months ago) and on Avodart for 7 months. My nightly frequency has only been twice per night, but I was diagnosed with BPH leading to “Silent Prostatism” because my bladder was continuing to expand as opposed to my frequency increasing “silent” because the symptoms are concealed).

My post void retention (PVR) has climbed steadily over the last year from 115 ml to 825 ml. However, I did have two brief bouts of increased frequency (almost hourly) in the year before that, but those bouts seemed to be from infections that antibiotics (Leviquin) fixed and returned me to a frequency of twice nightly. In hindsight, this is what led me to go to a Uro. Had this not occurred, I may have progressed to permanent bladder damage.

My Uro has been doing TURPs for 30 years and believes he can do a better job with the traditional TURP cutter (heated wire), but he finishes-up the job using the Biolitic Evolve laser to minimize bleeding (thus eliminating the big negative of cutting). I believe he said that he prefers the Evolve because it has higher power than the Greenlight laser and thus better penetration.

He said one of my side lobes was much larger than the other and it extended into my bladder. He said that he could shape it (creating a good large channel) with the TURP cutter much better than he could with a laser. Another minor advantage - the laser vaporizes tissue, but the cutter expels pieces which can be analyzed for cancer.

Since my surgery a week ago, I’ve had very little bleeding and very little pain. I’m pleased with the greatly improved flow. At my one-week check-up, my PVR was 203 ml, well on its way back to normal levels of 100-200. I’ll follow-up here with news of any significant events as they occur and I hope my story is helpful to other fellow BPH sufferers gathering information.