I've been working on this recently, and the answer is, "No." I have had chronic prostatitis for many, many years (I'm 38). It used to be a minor irritation, but it has slowly worsened. I have truly painful, intense urgency only a couple times each week; however, the prostatitis now causes an almost incessant, low-level urge to urinate. It is ignorable, but ignoring it gets pretty uncomfortable. For me, the worst time is the morning from around 6AM until noon. When it's really acting up, the sensation is comparable to what happens when you bang your elbow on something. Urinating very frequently helps to relieve that sensation. "Frequently" used to mean once every 45-90 minutes, and around 100MLs. Now, "frequently" can mean once every 5-10 minutes, and less than 10MLs. I lose track of how many times I have to hit the bathroom. The prostatitis causes dribbling every time I go, so increased frequency causes chronic dampness. Last summer, I switched to an ultra-thick, cotton brief, but even these become annoyingly damp.
I have experimented with reducing or eliminating caffeine. I found that this had almost no effect on my frequency. On the flip side, increasing my intake from 1-2 cups of tea to 3-4 definitely makes it worse. Diet soda, for some reason, causes more problems than regular soda. Alcohol is the worst. I have cut way, way back on alcohol. Alcohol exacerbates prostatitis, and I notice it for some time afterward.
My urologist -- whom I really like -- tells me candidly that medical science does not know what causes chronic prostatitis. The treatments for it are "hocus pocus." I tried Flowmax, but was allergic. That's frustrating, because Flowmax is the most direct way of treating prostatitis. After that we switched to bladder medications. I am on Oxybutynin on an as-needed basis, and it does help, but the side effects are rough.
From mid January until early March, I experimented with phasing out my usage of incontinence underwear. For over a month, I relied exclusively on Oxybutynin and timed voiding. This really didn't work, but it was worthwhile as an information-gathering exercise. The timed voiding thing just makes me uncomfortable all the time, and about once a week I would have accidents because of the periodic urgency I mentioned above. I noticed during this experiment that my stream is now almost always quite weak. Personally, I found the side effects of constantly using the Oxybutynin to be worse than the incontinence: headaches, depression, difficulty remembering things, scratchy throat. I can't take it everyday because the side effects (especially the mental health ones) are cumulative in ways that the benefits are not.
I have really struggled with accepting myself as a 38 y/o man who has to wear incontinence underwear. This experiment was messy and uncomfortable, but at least it convinced me that the problem is not in my head. At least I know that I am definitely not over-reacting. My father is almost seventy, and has had prostate-removal surgery. I remember when he started using guards and incontinence underwear. It's weird to be about half his age and have a similar problem.
Noe
|
I have more control in the morning, but as the day goes on my frequency increases and I have to go about every 45 minutes. At other times when my bladder has a mind of its own and goes on "automatic" I can pee every 10 minutes. This varies and I have more good days than bad. As I also am bowel incontinent, I never risk going without a diaper when I leave the home.