His and Her Health

Not sure if this is the correct place to post these questions. My husband is 34 and was just diagnosed with an enlarged prostate and placed on medication for this problem.

Question #1 - everything I have read indicates that men between 40-60 will deal with an enlarged prostate...what would cause a man of 34, generally healthy and fit, to have this problem?

Question #2 - should this problem be of concern to us as we try to conceive a child. Will this condition hinder our efforts to conceive?

thank you!

i dont know exacty the numbers but probably close to 1/2 of it is handed down from parents. im 51 soon and have it also. (maternal grandfather). it did not hinder us at all. you may want to check out the "aneros" device. it can and will help if his mind is open to new things. from what i gather the prostate makes the fluid that carries the sperm out. if it does not get drained regularly (never been a problem with me) it can enlarge to the point of restricting flow during urination. (again, not a problem for me, but because of my age the doc wants to do a biopsy on it) im sure u have seen the commercials for this symptom.

While I'm sure he is well-intended, "d rat's" posting contains about as much misinformation as one can throw at the poor prostate.

Before I forget, can you please let us know what were the symptoms your husband was experiencing?

The prostate is one of the most mysterious and least studied organs in the body. We don't know nearly as much about it as we might hope to. While one physician might say one thing about your husband's prostate, another might say something entirely different. So at the very least, I trust your husband's prostate is under the care of a urologist.

Also, strange as this might sound, when men in their 20s and 30s have prostate issues, we often refer to it as "prostatitis". when men over 40 have similar symptoms, we often refer to it as "BHP." This isn't to say that the two are the same, just that what we'd like to think of as a science is often more of an art.

To quote a recent article in the Journal of Urology, prostatitis is a syndrome that is “poorly defined, poorly understood, poorly treated, and bothersome.â€

I just put some prostate illustrations up on my website that you might find helpful:

www.goofyfootpress.com/sexualanatomy/the_prostate.php

As for your concern about an enlarged prostate impacting your husband's fertility, that's a question that is best asked of his urologist. I can't recall seeing anything in the literature on a correlation between the two, but I haven't been looking for one, either. So I'm not a good source on this, and there are also a number of different things that could be causing your man's enlarged prostate. (If you do ask his urologist, let us know what he or she says.)

Regarding any ideas that an enlarged prostate can be due to a failure to drain the thing, I've not heard that one being bantered about in the literature. Maybe it's something that monks wrestle with, but I don't think it plagues the prostate of the average guy in the Western world.

(Regarding other kinds of "draining," there are some treatments that might involve prostate massage, but that can be a painful and unpleasant process that is best left to the urologist who considers it to be worth trying. That kind of prostate massage is very different from normal prostate stimulation that you might do as part of sexplay if the two of you enjoy it.)

As for the "aneros" device, it's a 25 cent piece of plastic that sex toy stores sell for around $30. A guy sticks it up his butt and based on the way he sits, it pushes against his prostate. I consider it to be a prostate irritant, but that's just my own personal taste.

Update--Regarding your question about "an enlarged prostate" and fertility, I did a search on the Prostatitis Foundation website.

The first question would be whether your husband's sperm count is low, or if the sperm are not viable. If you are concerned, the best thing to do is to ask his urologist.

Here's a collection of articles on the subject of prostatitis and fertility from The Prostatitis Foundation:

http://www.prostatitis.org/infertility.html

Again, keep in mind that "an enlarged" prostate can mean many different things, so don't assume that one man's enlarged prostate is similar to another's, or has a similar cause, or that the cause can even be determined.