Top 3 Best Treatment Options for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

BPH or a condition better known as an enlarged prostate, is a disease encountered by men in their golden years, and the number of men with BPH symptoms is more than 50% of men older than 50. The clinically evident rise of the prostate is the increased size of the organ and pathogenomic symptoms which can include frequent urination, the feeling of urgency, difficulty to start urinating, and weak flow. The only good thing is that medical science has grown thus; patients have a chance to take medicines and to undergo the surgical operation to regain their quality of life.

What is the best treatment for BPH?

Medications are almost always the go-to kind of treatment intervention for an enlarged prostate (BPH). Alongside relieving the symptoms, these medications can also have potentials for delaying the progress of the diseases as well as alleviating the onset of complications involved. There are several types of medications used to treat BPH:There are several types of medications used to treat BPH:

1. Alpha-blockers: Such types of medicines have an effect of bringing the nerves for urination in the neck of the bladder and the prostate to a state of calm, hence leading to the relief from the difficulty of urination. First, medications like tamsulosin, alfuzosin and doxazosin are well worth exploring.
2. 5-alpha reductase inhibitors: These medications can be used to prevent further prostate gland growth or even affect a reduction in prostate size, mainly due to the lessening of the urinary symptoms. The prostate-related medicines used for this reason are finasteride dicarboxylate, dutasteride and proscar.
3. Combination therapy: For certain men, the two medications, alpha-blocker, and 5-alpha reductase inhibitor, can work better together than either medication working by itself. This can be seen in wafers such as the Tamdura Capsule that has both Dutasteride & Tamsulosin merged together. By doing just these two things, the enlargement of the prostate would soon follow and the flow of urine would definitely become better.

Minimally Invasive Procedures

During surgery, the least a person wants is the doctor to get in their stomach unnecessarily, cutting and burning. Also, while surgery is the ultimate remedy, no one wants to risk being BACK TO SURGERY if the procedure does not go well. 

Often, these procedures are less risky and incision-free. Therefore, it takes less time for the body to recover than surgery. Some popular minimally invasive treatments include:

1. Transurethral Microwave Thermotherapy (TUMT): This method uses microwave energy to destroy microscopic prostate tissue, unblocking the prostate tissue that causes blockage.
2. Transurethral Needle Ablation (TUNA): These findings suggest that prostate cancer treatment involving high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a promising option.
3. Urolift: Implants are relatively new to Urologic procedures. Scientists place small implants to hold the prostate lobes apart and stop the compression of the urethra, which allows free urine flow.

Surgical Interventions

Unlike some mild-to-moderate cases of BPH, surgical options are often needed for more serious ones. Generally, these interventions are adopted when there is no other choice than BPH or if some of the less risky treatment methods have failed.Common surgical treatments include:

1. Transurethral Resection of the Prostate (TURP): Performing this surgery is the most common approach to BPH that consists of removing a segment of the prostate gland causing the blockage.
2. Laser surgery: With laser therapy high energy lasers applied are utilized for either ablation or removing the unwanted prostate tissue.
3. Open prostatectomy: This is limited usually to massive prostrates and consists of making a cut and ridding part of the prostate.

How long does it take for BPH treatment to work?

BPH medications vary greatly in terms of how promptly they start to relieve symptoms. For example, after just two weeks on alpha blockers, urinary problems can be much better managed and some hardly noticeable. This type of medications works in a way that they relax the muscles in prostate and bladder necks, which results in enlarged prostate ailment being relieved. But 5-alpha reductase inhibitors, a medication that operates by incremental gradual prostate gland shrinking, normally will take a much longer time to demonstrate an effect to be noticeable. 

In practice, the effectiveness of these therapies carries the risk of needing to be applied over a long period of time (at least a few months), before patients are likely to notice the relief of most signs and symptoms. Thus, the time factor is so important that when a patient or an attending physician has to make a rational choice between different antagonists of BPH, it goes without saying that the temporal aspect should be first considered.