BPH symptoms exacerbated by certain food/drink

Men's health
1

Hello guys,

I have been reading this forum, on and off, for quite a while now since I was diagnosed with BPH about three  years ago and I should like to say a big 'Thank you' to all who have taken the time and trouble to detail and share their battle with this very annoying condition.

This is my first post.

I started taking Tamsulosin about two years ago after quite a while of experiencing difficulty/frequency urinating which culminated in getting up one night and not being able to urinate at all for a few hours.

I found an almost immediate improvement and for a while got some relief.

That was okay until about 8 months ago when my symptoms started to 're-appear' So back to the doctor's 6 months ago where he did another PSA test and DRE the results of which were much as before. He prescribed me Finasteride to take alongside the Tamsulosin.

Things seemed to calm down a little with sometimes a perceived sense  of an almost 'normal' flow.

What I would like to ask of any of you who may be on the same combination of drugs is do you find your symptoms 'come and go' from day to day or couple of days? By this I mean can you be almost, dare I say it, 'normal' on some days with the condition not bothering you at all and then, for no apparent reason the next day, feel the need to go all the time and poor stream?

I have tried to equate these differences, perhaps, to what I have eaten or drank the previous day/s and have come to the conclusion that certain items really do affect how I feel in this respect.

For example I avoid Tea/Coffee completely as the last cup of coffee I had, quite a while ago now, had me wanting to pee every hour for days afterwards!

Other things which I 'think' have similar effects are:

Greek style honey yogurt

Chocolate flavoured almond milk

Soya

An odd combination, but has anyone else experienced similar with these or other items?

As well as the food and drink thing do any of you find your symptoms appear worse if you get even just slightly constipated?

Currently I feel okay on some days whilst on others I feel the constant need to urinate and cannot get any relief when I go.

I will be 62 next month but sometimes feel about 80 as this really does get me down as it seems to be on my mind all the time.

All the discomfort associated with this has robbed me of any sexual interest and the Finasteride capped it off by giving me dry orgasms when I do try!

Putting off going back to the Doctor's as don't want surgical intervention for various reasons let alone all the side effects of such things which I have read about.

I have come to the conclusion that the Prostate is very badly placed in the body and must have been designed by someone who doesn't have to live with one!

Thanks for reading this.

Best wishes to all.

2

I relate to your position. I'm on Flomax at the moment. Urologist yesterday suggested Proscar. I have been leary of starting Proscar because of side-effects. Not everyone experiences them though. Doctor said I will know in two weeks if I will experience the side-effects. My symptoms do get better and worse. Right now, it has worsened. I haven't been able to connect foods to worsening symptoms. General rule is to avoid coffee and spicy foods. I told the urologist yesterday that I want to have PAE done. I really don't want to be dependent on drugs the rest of my life and the side-effects that may go along. PAE is no guarantee for a medicine-free life, but it appears to be safe with no sexual side-effects. So I'm contemplating at the moment whether to go to Portugal to have PAE done by Dr. Pisco. I agree that the prostate was poorly positioned and becomes a blight for many men.

3

I think that variations of symptoms is typical of BPH with good days and bad days and nights. In twenty years I have not really found anything in the food and drink line that has worsened it.

Most laser surgery is straight forward. I had green light laser PVP in 2005 with immediate recovery and no retro. When it regrew I had a spell on Finesteride (started to grow breasts) and Tamsulosin that started reduced ejaculation. Then I had holmium laser surgery in 2013 when my prostate regrew and that stopped ejaculation all together but no other post operation problems apart from an infection caused when the catheter was in. However my flow after each procedure was not what I expected. At the moment it is very intermittent with my prostate at 50grms. Pre operation it was 130grms. A cystoscopy two weeks ago found no reason for my slow flow. The only suggested reason was possible less elasticity in my bladder caused by past retention and there is not a reliable test for that  

4

An interesting post. I started taking the two drugs you mention about 6 years ago and they did improve the symptoms a little but the side effects (which apparently only 1 in 10 suffer from according to the packaging ) are not good from tiredness to loss of libido etc etc. On reflection and with hindsight I struggle to see how the medical profession dare recommend them. I certainly never experienced any ups or downs dependent of food or dronk intake I don't believe there is any correlation at all.

5

I have also read that alcohal and caffiene are two things to avoid.  Hard to do however.

6

Yes I'm also aware of that and indeed have decaff coffee plus low alcohol intake but I don't think they are BPH issues more irritability of the bladder there is a word for it I can't recall .....bladder instability I think ?

7

They say i in 10. The nurse at my dotors surgery says it is the most complained about drug by her patients... both from men and their wives:-)

 

8

Well, Stephen since you already have retrograde ejaculation as I did from the meds, There is very little if any downside to the Holmium Laser enucleation of the Prostate  (Holep) method, if my experience is any guide. I won't repeat here as I have written thousands of words about my experience in these forums. I don't see how any method could be better from the patient's point of view. All of my posts are written by RonTexan. Good Luck. 

9

Stephen54687, have you tried Saw Palmetto?  I was put on Flomax about 15 months ago but it gave me tachycardia so the NHS consultant recommended Saw Palmetto,  It seems to work well for my flow, the brand I buy is Vogel Prostasan from health food shops..  I've not noticed any foods that cause a change in symptoms but do eat a Nakd bar every day to counter the constipation effects of some of the meds I'm taking.

10

Hi Twiglet21

Yes, indeed, I tried Saw Palmetto before I even went to the Doctor's years ago, by which time I had been suffering with varying severity for quite a while. I didn't notice any positive effect but perhaps I didn't persevere long enough. As with all these things, they can take a while before you notice any difference. I stopped taking it when I first went to the Doctor and he prescribed Tamsulosin. You mention constipation. Do you find that your BPH symptoms are worsened by constipation at all? I suffer with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) which flares up every so often and I don't think that helps much! Glad to hear you have found some relief with Saw Palmetto.

11

Hi Guys,

Thank you to all of you who have taken the time and trouble to read and respond to my post.

It appears, from what you are saying, that there is no connection with food and drink regarding the worsening of symptoms but, it appears, that 'good days and bad days' are the norm.

Perhaps it is just coincidence or perhaps it is just my way (subconciously) of rationalising why sometimes I feel not too bad and, for no apparent reason, other times feeling terrible. I suppose if one could say 'Yes, this or that makes it worse' then it would be easier to 'plan' for better days but when there is no obvious cause it sort of leaves you feeling totally at its mercy. But, as can be seen from reading the hundereds of posts from different guys, we are all different and it affects us all accordingly. Perhaps I have developed and 'irritable bladder' to compliment the main course of BPH. Who knows?

The trouble with the human body, with all its complexities, is that if one thing is slightly 'out of tune' then other things which rely upon it also get skewed, a little like an ageing computer which has run low on RAM and starts to reply more on its swap file thus putting more wear and tear on the hard drive which then develops bad sectors etc. etc.

At least I know I am not alone, nor imagining, that its better on some days and worse on others, there is some comfort in that.

Take care.

12

Thanks Ron, I will make time to read your posts.

13

I take tamsulosin and myrbetriq and experience virtually the same results as you in that I go periods of time with reletively no symptons, getting up once a night even and then it turns radically bad with me having no knowledge as to why. I try in vain to find the trigger but have been unsuccessful to date. Really stinks as you never know when it is going to switch and can ruin travel plans, events, etc. It is a cruel illness and I wish the doctors and researchers were bettewr able to help so man suffering from this.

14

My urologist said finisteride caused problems 1 in 20.  He was wrong and Derek is right.  It is around 1 in 10 considering loss of libido, impotence, and ejaculation problems.  He did say Avodart caused more problems than finisteride with patients.  Avodart does a 90-95% block of DHT while finisteride does 70-75%.  According to my research, he was right on that. 

15

Stephen, I hae had issues with excessive peeing for up to 15 years. I do a lot of long distant flying and on a 12 hour flight have had many occasions when I have to go to the bathroom 20 times ot more. It is a terrible situation, especially when there is a queue. However I have experienced significant improvement since having alergy tests and discovering that I am allergic / intolerant of many foods. The first and most important discovery was nuts - as soon as I stopped eating any type of nut my symptoms reduced significantly to the point where on a a trip to the USA last week I slept for over 6 hours without having to go. My wife did a lot of research on nuts and found a paper by the FDA whihc stated that eating peanuts can casued some people to need to urinate up to 20 times a day. I always used to eat peanuts and of course they are one of the first things they give you when you get on a plane! Other tests showed that I had intolerance of many fruits and vegetables - one of the worst being tomatoes. In the end this was all grouped together when i had a test to see if I was allergic to Saliclates which I was. Aspirin has a lot of salicylate in it so the test is to take more and more aspirin over 8 hours and see what that does - certainly had the affect on me. Here is a link about salicylate intolerance

 http://salicylatesensitivity.com/about/food-guide/

There are so many things that you cant eat as everything has this natural chemical in it but you will see there are variations and if you keep off the high and very high then it can make a difference - well it dif for me.

So I am now in a position where if I can control my diet I can get 5 to 6 hours continuous sleep - travelling as much as I do does make this difficult though.

I stil have BPH though and at the end of the month, so when I eat salicyates it becomes a real problem, so will be having a urolift - which I am hoping will make everything much better for me.

Other people I have told to stop eating nuts have seen an improvement.

 

16

I take the same combination and whilst I "never" need to get up in night nor have I ever I do agree with you as to the "variation".  I sometimes wake up in the morning for my first pee which is sometimes raesonably slow and sometimes like a small pony!

Going to some further points made earlier I would question whether a consultant in UK should "reccomend Saw Palmetto". It is certainly not prescriable in UK I think and I cannot find any reference to reputable scientic peer-reviewed trials. The FDA [USA] do not permit it to be recommended. A Californian trial 2002 - 2010 was concluded without positive result.    Whether any foods etc make any difference is so difficult to ascertain as so many other factors may be at work.

Certainly Tamsulosin has side effects. One for me is that it is slightly Viagric!

Finasteride too has side effects.  You are supposed to grow breasts and a full head of hair and at my age these would be entertaining "I'll just play with the puppies ..."  but no to both.  Retrograde ejaculation yes but if I really need to ejaculate then stopping the tablets for two days works [for me] but the urinary flow decreases

Ah well

17

Google:

'Using Saw Palmetto to Treat an Enlarged Prostate' and you will find that it is prescribed in Europe.

With Finasterde I started to grow the breasts but did not wait for the hair.

18

But not in UK! Not - certainly - on NHS. 

The French - in particular - are reputed to get much medication via suppositoriesbiggrin

19

It is cheap enough to buy in health food shops. I buy tincture of saw palmetto diectly from the herbalists who make it and suply it to shops. I prefer it in liquid form as I always think that like instant coffee powdered forms are not so good.

20

What kind of allergy test for foods did you take?