BPH stands for benign prostatic hyperplasia. It's really just an "enlarged prostate" - and I say "BPH" could also stand for "Big Painful Headache" because that's what it is. I was diagnosed with BPH back in the summer of 2012. At first the thought of it completely creeped me out: My precious pee tube being slowly pinched off by a slowly-growing organ... well, that gave me the heeby-geebies.

My initial symptoms of BPH

It was August 2012 and I started noticing my “stream” was becoming more of an advanced dribble, and this was accompanied by a burning sensation and the feeling of having to go, even if I just went. Not thinking “enlarged prostate” I was thinking maybe I had an infection of some sort.

So I headed to the doctor, hoping a few antibiotics would clear it all up.

Little did I know…

My doctor also thought it could be an infection – at first. Then he ran some tests which showed no infection at all. He repeated the test, and when that showed no infection, he referred me to a urologist.

This is kind of when denial started to set in, and I thought maybe his tests just didn’t pick up any infection. But somewhere deep down, I think I knew what was coming.

The urologist promptly (and with an unnerving eagerness) “probed” for an answer. He said with a slight grin, “Well your prostate is a little enlarged, bigger than I’d expect from someone 10 years younger than you are now.”

I keep forgetting that someone 10 years younger than me is in his mid-30’s. How in the world did I hit my mid-40’s already?

He gave me the spiel about it being common and that there are all sorts of things that can be done about it.