This discussion began 10 months ago when my difficulty urinating had not yet taken hold, but it has in recent months and for reasons that are not addressed in the postings thus far. In my case, urine is blocked or reduced by pressure on my urethra as it passes through my prostate gland. The pressure is NOT applied on my bladder -- as others above speculate -- but by fecal matter clustering in my rectum at the very bottom of my digestive tract. The expanding rectum is located below the bladder where the prostate gland surrounds the urethra as it passes out of the bladder and through the prostate. As others have noted, their medical teams have not listed this as a cause of urinary blockage, and that's been my experience as well with a half-dozen physicians and specialists on my medical team. Fortunately, three successive reports by radiologists on CT Scans have suggested that my team look at the interaction of prostate and rectum in their clinical diagnoses. Moreover, my urologist for the last three years called off another scheduled cystocopy (to examine my prostate again) when he learned that urine flowed more freely after defecation than before. Martin