by Tim Parks
My surgeon arrived and quite unexpectedly put a friendly arm round my shoulder. How wonderful Italy was, I thought, the way knowing just one person made a whole group of people so well disposed towards you, and protective. ‘You do realise,’ the doctor was saying, ‘that if we wanted to I could burn out a bit of that prostate while I’m inserting the probe for the cystoscopy; and open up the sticky sphincter too, if you like. We use the same instrument for both jobs, you see. It would only add five or six minutes to proceedings and save you a second trip. What do you think? No more tests, no more anaesthetic. Get it over with.’
I was taken by surprise and reacted vehemently. ‘No, No and no, no!’
‘Ah, I just thought you ought to know that that is an option. It’s a very simple procedure. While we are in there, so to speak.’
I turned to look him in the eyes. ‘Absolutely not. OK? We’re just looking, it’s just a test.’
I was surprised by my own intensity.
‘Don’t worry!’ The man was amused but taken aback, as if it was extraordinary that I should care so much.
You strip and put on a long white nightshirt, then half sit, half lie, on something that looks like a birth-chair with a plastic bowl beneath your butt to gather the blood. Everywhere there are straps and buckles to hold the work-piece – yourself – absolutely still so that radical things can be done to you. The thick smell of chemical cleanliness is one with gleaming surfaces and sharp tools. You surrender your body to their science.
I smiled and said hello to everyone.
‘Good morning, Signor Pax,’ someone said. ‘How are we feeling this morning?’
While the team were setting up their instruments, the surgeon asked me if I had heard that Carlo had discovered he had diabetes. It had happened while I was away in India.
‘Almost passed out in his car, came right away for tests and found his blood sugar was way over. Stratospheric.’
‘Given what he was eating . . .’ I said.
One of the nurses was now strapping my feet into two large boot devices way up in the air and a good metre apart. There is always a part of me, at these moments, eager to rebel. Yet I never do. I imagine it is the same at executions.
‘In fact, they put him on a diet,’ the doctor chuckled rather lugubriously, taking his place between my feet. ‘No more doughnuts, I’m afraid.’ He had a mask over his face now and what looked like a plastic bag on his head. ‘Not to mention the medications.’
Then despite the situation I was in, with a nurse tying rubber round my forearm to inject the anaesthetic, I said the real problem with Carlo was, why did he feel the need to eat so much? There must be some sort of psycho problem if he couldn’t keep away from the sugar. Especially being a doctor and knowing the risks.
Pulling rubber gloves on those heavily veined hands, the surgeon shook his head. ‘Carluccio just loves his food’, he said.
A nurse lifted the white nightshirt to prepare the approach to the difficult target. I was aware of something long and metallic in the doctor’s hands and at the same time I felt intensely concerned that this man who was about to push something hard and far too wide into the tip of my penis could not see the plain truth that our friend Carlo had serious problems.
‘If ever there was a case of physician heal thyself!’ I protested. ‘He’s always got something in his mouth. That can’t be—’
I passed out.
A curious thing about anaesthetics is that when you come to you have no sense of time having elapsed. With sleep, as I said, I know within ten minutes or so how long I’ve been unconscious. Here the film cut abruptly from feelings of anxiety, distrust and humiliation on the operating chair, to the sound of echoing footsteps and low, urgent voices. I opened my eyes and judged, from the ceiling, that I must be in a corridor. It was a trolley bed. Turning my head, I saw another bed being wheeled past me. The occupant was entirely covered by a sheet.
I breathed deeply.
I will know now, I thought. Now I will find out that I have cancer of the bladder. Then I can forget all the psychosomatic crap and start fighting it. Chemo, surgery, radiation. I was ready.
I waited. The minutes passsed. I thought back to the operating room and realised I could hardly remember it. I had only the vaguest image of that chair; in retrospect it looked like a Meccano-built torture instrument assembled by a provincial serial killer. There had been a woman and two or three other people around me, but I had no recollection of them. Did the doctor tell the nurses what he was seeing through the probe as it pushed up the urethra, past the prostate and urinary sphincters into the bladder? How did they get you off the operating chair and onto the bed afterwards? How long had I been unconscious in the corridor here? Why did no one come to check on me?
More beds were wheeled by: a boy sitting up smiling; an elderly woman’s face in profile, grey and wasted. Everyone wore gowns, white or green. There was a constant buzz, not unpleasant. I felt no pain at all. Then the doctor was beside me. His hollow, dark face smiled down. A perplexed, ironic smile, I thought.
‘Bladder clean as a baby’s,’ he said. ‘Pink and pristine.’
Passing water and blood in the loo two hours later was the most excruciating pain I have ever felt. I remembered the time I had gone running and passed blood and it had been nothing. Nothing. I felt jubilant.
6,820,000 Hits
MY HUSBAND HAS been diagnosed with an enlarged prostate for the last 3 years now. He’s only 29. He’s seen one urologist several times. Is there anything else he can do? Any other antibiotics or anything? Second, would these problems affect his fertility or sex drive?
It’s 5.30 in the morning. I have typed ‘prostate pain’ into Google.
I don’t go out any more. Every time I go into any place I have to locate the bathrooms. I won’t go anywhere where I won’t be able to pee at least once an hour.
There are ‘approximately’ 6,820,000 hits for this search. Most lead to other links. Some open chats that fill screen after screen.
I’ve been taking alpha blockers for a while now but I’ve lost all sexual stimulus.
My uro has diagnosed me with ‘multiple prostate stones’ as the main reason for my almost constant pain and discomfort. He has prescribed Cipro and then Floxin, both without success.
Until the cystoscopy I had only used the net to check up the medical procedures that they had prescribed for me. Now I have to decide what to do.
A year ago my husband was in great shape. He was mountain climbing, kayaking, and backpacking. Although he is only 27 years old, his health has drastically declined in the past year. He suddenly had difficulty urinating, and we found out that he has an enlarged prostate. We’ve been to 3 doctors reguarding that and they don’t know what is wrong. He had blood work done and they don’t think it is cancer. Beyond that, they don’t know why it is enlarged.
I realise now that before completing the medical tests I had imagined that, if they all came out negative, I would automatically start feeling better and my problems would subside: finding there was ‘nothing wrong with me’ would itself be a cure. Instead, things are worse. I can’t stay in bed after five. I go down to the computer until it’s time to take Lucy to school.
I have pain in my anal area. I am a little embarrassed to go to see a doctor. Well, and not sure if it is anal pain or prostate pain. Is there a difference?
Your husband is rather young for this problem. Antibiotics can dampen down the infection but never seem to eradicate it, and it can go on for years I am afraid to say. Certainly the pain will/can affect his sex drive. It’s like getting your hand slapped every time you reach for the sweet tin! There must be a ? about fertility.
The net is not encouraging. But it seemed important to find out how other people were dealing with the situation.
Anyone any ideas on how to lesson the irritation and long-term lubrication of the part of the catheter outside the penis?
We just learned this week what went wrong. After the green-light s
urgery his prostate swelled. It got so large it cut off its own blood supply. The loss of blood supply caused his prostate to swell even more. It got so big it pushed against his lower rectum, pinching it shut. He couldn’t poop solids.
I try to bring some method to my research but for the first few days I’m just shocked and fascinated. I read at random, losing myself in the unhappy crowd.
I had not thought the prostate had undone so many.
After what I’ve been through, I think I would sooner have disturbed nights than take another medication with more potential side effects.
I did not have erection after 1996 except twice after the surgery. The pills and the pump do not work and I have to inject myself.
The ‘certain procedure’ turned out to be that I would have to catheterise myself three times a day!
Then the doctor inserted a balloon to stretch my bladder and later they put in a stent to keep my urethra open only it got infected.
In the 1940s, when Alfred Kinsey was putting together his report on sexuality in the USA, interviewing thousands upon thousands of men and women about their experiences, there came a point where he was overwhelmed. It was too much. He began to lose his sense of identity. On the net, it only takes a couple of days to realise you are in danger. You start to mix up your own story with other people’s. You imagine symptoms you don’t have.
Dear Dr. Motola: My husband was told that his urine was being forced sideways into the prostate duct and it was that that was causing the swelling and the pain.
Prostate fullness, slight pain, extending into penus on occasion . . . had fistula in the past, have hernia . . . Can anyone help?
Pray for Linda and Her Husband who has severe chronic prostatitis: ‘My husband and I have been trying for a baby for 4 years now but he has pain during sex and after. The doctors . . .’
I rarely finish reading a thread. I never write down my own symptoms or respond to anyone else’s. I’m reminded of Nathanael West’s novel, Miss Lonelyhearts. A male journalist is asked to write the agony column in a New York newspaper under a woman’s name. He starts out with the idea it will be a joke but eventually drowns in oceans of anxiety.
hello yes ive been masturbating since the age of 14 and starded smoking pot at 17 and im now twenty having problems with pelvic pains, stomach pains bladder problems off and on headaches my scrotun has serousily shrunk and ive been having penis and testicle pains i would go to the doctor to get checked out but im very scared on the bad news im going to get what should i do and is there any hope of me having kids
The curious thing as I scroll down entry after entry is that I feel I am both the agony aunt and the letter writers. These lives seem interchangeable. We’re all in the same boat.
I’m getting up 4 to 5 times a night sometimes more to go to the bathroom, evidently their must be some other reason for it other than enlarged prostate as I had the operation almost two years ago now!
Taken singly, none of the entries seems to offer much wisdom; taken together they read like a life sentence.
It went from an ache in my lower back in the morning to a sharp stabbing sensation in my pelvic area, groin and testicles. Eventually, I would be doubled up in agony and would have to go back to bed. Then I’d get up a few hours later to find the pain had gone, thinking ‘what was that all about?’
. . . 70% of men over fifty . . .
This is driving me nuts, if it’s goes on forever I’ll kill myself. I really will.
The net is so promiscuous. There are those who can spell and those who can’t, those who are suffering and those who are selling. Today’s threads run alongside messages a decade old. This man is writing from China.
I was ever been a prostatitis patient for seven years. The prostate expand and pain sharply. My waist pain, dizzy and weak. I had seen many famous doctors in china, had used the microwave, infrared ray scan, acupoint injection, squeeze medicine into anus to cure the disease.
The cancer patients get mixed up with the enlarged prostate sufferers. They discuss their post-operative incontinence problems.
I’m a commercial service tech. Finding a restroom on a forty acre factory rooftop can be a challenge. Can’t use pads because of the leakage, and changing a pull up on the job with other guys around is a real pain in the buttocks.
Rant your ass of brother! I listien to alot of Springsteen and Neil Young. It helps.
Hey, why not try condom catheters? Here’s the link!
There are those convinced that prostate pains are the result of an autoimmune disease, those who believe in a mystery virus. It comes from too much sitting and a sedentary life. It’s sexually transmitted. Masturbation helps. Masturbation makes it worse. All you can do is wait for science to find the cause and the cure. No, you must be proactive! Take hot baths, do yoga, avoid spicy food, stop smoking and drinking.
If I type in ‘pelvic pain’ rather than ‘prostate pain’, I find the women are going through exactly the same thing. It’s uncanny. Here is Marion:
I’m 22. I use the bathroom right before I go to sleep at night, but then about 5 minutes after I lay down I get the urge to go, and only a little tinkle comes out. And then again and again and again. But there’s no infection. And only at night. What is happening to me?
And here is Helen:
This went on for more than thirteen years, until in the end in desperation they took my bladder out, yeah, believe it, my bladder, and had a bag put in. And the pain went on just the fuckin same!!!
The long-term sufferers are inured. The young are dismayed.
I’ve just started this new job. If the pain goes on I don’t think I can stay with it.
My girlfriend’s trying to be nice but I can see she wants out.
Suddenly my semen got clumpy and discoloured. I also experienced pain in my testicles and back. I’m 23. In addition the sensation during ejaculation has changed completely. I get these really bad headaches for hours afterwards. And this sort of dull pain in the groin.
Reading these posts, I start thinking about my own children, presently fast asleep upstairs. I start to think it’s bound to happen to them. They’ll wake up to this misery one day. But these are dumb, defeatist thoughts. Here at last is a success story.
After eight years of taking medication for constant prostate pain, antibiotics for infections destroying my immune system, and frequent time consuming costly visits to numerous urologists, a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic referred me to Dr. Krongrad. He referred me for surgical prostate removal. When I came out of surgery, I was laying on my back for the first time in many years without the pain of feeling as if I had a golf ball in my rectum. One month later, I was able to resume my passion of playing drums and gigging with my band.
Ten minutes later I find this.
My case is very simple, at forty-three I was mutilated, they did that operation they call TURP, man it was the biggest mistake I ever made, when I decided to have that procedure.
Going back to the triumphant post-surgery post, I realise it makes frequent references to Dr Krongrad and his clinic. Could the guy really have felt so good as they wheeled him out of the operating room? After a while you realise that most of those claiming dramatic cures are pushing you towards a product or a clinic. Prostatitis is big business.
I have found Saw Palmetto to help expel urine completely. Orgasms are getting closer to normal. Pains declining. I’ve been on Saw Palmetto (85% fatty acids & sterols) for about two weeks. I have noticed improvement within three days. I got the Saw Palmetto from Trader Joe’s for only $6.99 (100 tabs). This is about $15.00 cheaper than most other brands.
A man with his own site on prostate health directs you to the Aneros anal massage and sex toy.
It’s a must!
A woman writes in:
I am a prostate massage therapist who has been practising for over 9 years helping gentlemen who have prostate issues. Remember, just because the prostate is tucked away doesn’t mean it doesn’t need attention!
I wonder if ‘prostate issues’ was meant to be a joke.
Sometimes a contributor doesn’t realise what kind of chat he’s in:
God knows why the male G spot was put up the arse but there we go, if it’s done correctly along with stimulation of the penis the orgasm is out of this world! Try it!
This time there’s a link to:
The PS New is our flagship prostate massager. It has a long body with two nodules on the end for direct contact on the prostate. The ridges add stability and the fixed perineal acupressure arm provides an external massage. Made of medical-grade, impact resistant, non-porous plastic.
Occasionally an expert puts someone straight.
I am glad that Saw Palmetto worked for you. A recent study showed that it does improve symptoms. However, patients on placebo also have the same kind of symptom relief. Therefore, I don’t think there is a scientific proof at this time.
An American medical site claims that 50 per cent of enlarged prostate patients respond to placebos for periods of two to four weeks. Considering this statistic, it occurs to me that ‘placebo’, like ‘psychosomatic’, suggests a perverse relationship between body and mind, something muddying the waters of scientific research, putting the wayward psyche between an expensively certified substance and a carefully analysed condition.
Still, to say ‘only a placebo effect’, as one expert complains of a product called ‘silver water’, seems to me the wrong approach. The important thing, surely, would be to stretch out the placebo effect ad infinitum. Then who cares if the medicine’s just a sugar cube? All the better, in fact. That said, I am one of the 50 per cent who never get a placebo effect from anything, whether it be ayurvedic herbs or powerful adrenalin receptor blockers. Is this because I don’t have faith in my doctors, because when I take a medicine I actually expect things to get worse rather than better? Or could it be that in my case psychology has little say on the matter, which would be ironic given how willing I am to embrace that version of events?