There. I said it.

Werty derd.

I’ll be talking to the guys, here, about something that’ll affect most, eventually.

Actually, I already talked about it in my other post on sleep and natural-source calming drugs. So, no need for more than a quick summary here, and then get to my observation/recommendation.

If you are really interested in details, then Wikipedia and umpty-twelve medical-stuff sites will be glad to help you. The short form is:

If you are over (say) 45, your prostate gland - a ring-shaped gland with muscles, that encircles your urethra just at the point where it (tries to) exit(s) your bladder - has been soaking up your spare testosterone or dihydrotestosterone and swelling for the past two or three decades. So, it’s been pushing up against your bladder, and it’s been tightening around your urethra (the only pipe by which urine can get from your bladder to the outside world).  Having worked up a good head of steam, so to speak, it’s getting to the point where it’s starting to restrict the old flow. It’s making you feel the need, the need to pee, more often, and more frequently than seems strictly necessary. Can’t make it through the night any more, can you?  Oh? Still can?   Just wait a bit (he said, looking at his watch).

If you are in your twenties, well all that hasn’t happened yet. You’re the young guy in the public washroom, pissing like a firehose, barely repressing a derisive smirk as the middle-aged fart next to you dribbles and spurts, pauses and grunts.  Take note. It’s coming. You can’t feel it yet. It doesn’t give you any warning… not that there’s much of anything you could do, if you knew. Well, you can jack off, or have sex, a lot. Yep, apparently science pokes the Catholic church in the eye, yet again, and masturbation and/or regular sex WHILE YOU ARE YOUNG are good for your prostate health when you get older. Who knew? Apparently, if you work the machinery five times a week when you are young, it doesn’t clog up and doesn’t go cancerous when you get older. Well, at least it becomes significantly less likely. Studies show… really. So, since (statistically) most of us don’t marry young any more, it appears that science is telling you to have pre-marital/extra-marital sex, for your health. But wait. Another study or ten points to an increased incidence of prostate cancer and other problems due to STDs from promiscuous sex. Why can’t these scientists make up their minds, dammit?  Looks like it’s monogamy or your hand, buddy.

Er, sorry about the digression, there. I just wanted the arrogant 22-year-olds to sweat a bit. Now, back to whatever it was we were talking about… uh… OH, right.  Prostate. Benign hypertrophy thereof.

It affects some of us sooner, some of us later, and most of us eventually. There are various medical approaches, all with nasty risks and side-effects, that can be invoked when BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia) gets to its not-very-benign advanced stages. What we’re interested in is dealing with the interim. 

Your medical practitioner will be more than pleased to either:

a) prescribe you all sorts of thoroughly-tested, “targeted” drugs, with lists of known/expected side-effects that threaten your liver, your kidneys, your eyesight, your heart, your balance, your ability to hold down your breakfast, your weight, your IQ… and give you suicidal thoughts.

b) tell you about all the above and suggest that you just not take anything, put up with the symptoms until they become totally unbearable, then get on a waiting list for some of those late-stage surgical interventions.

If it’s not obvious, I actually like that second doctor better, but I don’t like the symptoms. I especially don’t like being one of the poor slobs on the early slope of the ol’ bell curve.  So, I’m keeping my eye peeled for relatively benevolent things that I can take/do, to minimize those symptoms.

By the way, we’re not addressing cancer here. My Dad had that, got the injection of radioactive metal slivers, suffered for several months, and went into remission on his prostate cancer - right on schedule, about the 72-year mark.  Of course, he also was well into the secondary stages of emphysema, by then, and was only saved from a lingering, gasping death by having his lung cancer metastasize to his brain… but I’m digressing again, aren’t I?  The take-away point from this paragraph is that, while it might be connected with BPH - it affects the same machinery, and is driven by many of the same factors - prostate cancer is not just an inconvenience or a pain in the equipment. It kills.  Get your PSA levels tested, and get your doctor to perform the ol’ digital exam.

So, back to discussing the non-cancerous development of the prostate, and what to do about it.

The WWW is chock full of offerings to help alleviate BPH symptoms. I have not tried most of them. Frankly, I’m scared to try some of them.  

Or maybe… I’m just not there yet. 

What I did try was the same one that everybody tries, Saw Palmetto. It sorta worked. A little bit. But right from the start, it bugged me that the ubiquitous herbal treatment that’s touted all over the place was being only minimally effective at the early end of what might turn into 30 years (or more) with a steadily increasing problem.  Oi.

It happens that I was poking around with some other stuff, health-related, a few years previous. Maybe you’ve heard of Dr. Peter D’Adamo and the Eat Right 4 Your Type diet (a.k.a. the Blood-type diet). Now, I don’t for a minute think that he’s got “all the answers”, but it does appear that he’s onto something. The available evidence suggests that there is some foundation to some of his theories and to at least some of his practical advice. So, to make a long story longer, D’Adamo suggests that, for people with blood type O (hi there!) some different herbs might be more effective than Saw Palmetto. Topping the list was. Urtica Dioica, otherwise known as Stinging Nettle, specifically the root.

So, I tried it. It worked, after just a few days. The effect was significantly better than what I’d noticed from taking recommended dosage of Saw Palmetto.  Goody.

So… and you can see this coming… the next thing I did was to combine the two. The combination worked better than either one alone.

What’s even better, I didn’t have to get the Stinging Nettle root from D’Adamo’s company, at inflated prices. Of course, I couldn’t find it at Costco, Wal-Mart, any of my local chain drugstores or supermarkets. Not even the natural-food-and-supplements stores could sell it to me. Was I going to have to dig up my own nettle plants and process the roots? 

Fortunately, an old-fashioned independent pharmacy downtown was willing to find it for me. This is one of those places where they still concoct at least some prescriptions in-house. The nettle root that they found for me is commercial, from www.herbalselect.com in Guelph, Ontario, Canada (just down the highway a few hundred miles).  Woohoo.

There are tons of other sources out there. Probably just about any vendor of the powdered root of the urtica dioica plant is as good as another. Really the ONLY reason I’ve been sticking with this particular one is that it’s the one this local pharmacist chose. Yeah, it could be the producer is run by the pharmacist’s brother-in-law. It could be a lot of things. But these people have given a convincing performance of being both sincere and knowledgeable for the past several years, so I’ll go with what they’ve got. For now.

My theory, unsupported by anything stronger than logical supposition, is that D’Adamo has the right idea here. Saw Palmetto has some effect on BPH symptoms. It has enough that people have been recommending it for years’n'years. The reason it gets so many recommendations and yet didn’t do me as much good as I’d hoped is that it’s more effective for the other half of the male population, those with blood-type A or AB. We type-O types do better with Stinging Nettle root. The blood-type-A folks would likely find that the nettle didn’t do as much for them as it does for type O.  Again, nothing but supposition, there. Maybe, if you are an older guy with BPH and blood type A, you could try urtica dioica root for a while, then try Saw Palmetto for a while, then try a combination for a while, and report in here. 

I’m already here, so I’m not all that interested in participating in actual controlled, double-blind studies, or at least not for longer than six months or so. It would have a bad effect on my health (the constantly interrupted sleep) if I was in the wrong group and had to resume full symptoms for half a year. Selfish bastard, I am.  Seriously, if somebody is organizing a proper study, and it won’t take longer than six months, I’ll volunteer.  More than that, and we’re getting into a significant fraction of my entire remaining time (actuarilly speaking), and I value my comfort.

Ahem.

Well, this is as good a place as any to wrap for today, no?

Come back soon.

That’s the way I see it, anyway.

Copyright 200… nine.  Yeah.  Almost got me there. I started this in 2008, the wife couldn’t stay awake for midnight (and The Hour with George Strombolopoulos (sp?) wasn’t doing it for her), and she went to bed. So did the cats.  So here it is 2009. May it be a good one for you. G’night.   Copyright 2009.    Hah!