Does anyone have any tips for pre and post op TURP procedure?

@dbee, good discussion to gather tips from others. I'm tagging a few members like @dlkreps @ckostoff @wellness100 @jimmyl @stew80 @victor1930 @jakedduck1 and @predictable, who have experience with transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) and can share their advice regarding preparing for the procedure and things to do to help recovery.

Dbee, how are you doing?

I had the TURP procedure 2 years. Prior to surgery I would awaken 6-10/ night with the need to empty my bladder. The procedure was quick and I spent the night in the hospital as most cases are for precautionary measures. A catheter was placed in the urethra until the next morning in which a nurse removed it. I had no pain what so ever and didn’t require any pain meds or Tylenol. After the catheter was removed I didn’t have any issues with leaking or dribbles. Complete and full continence was achieved after the procedure. Issues prior to the TURP of poor stream and retention completely vanished after the procedure. I wished I had done this many years sooner.

For me it was good and bad depending on how you look at it. The side effects were bad. Blood in urine, incontinence, burning pain etc. It was then they discovered the cancer. I only learned later that it is not uncommon to find the prostate cancer through TURP. About 10 %. Usually where they cannot find any cancer with biopsy, MRI etc. So that might be worth taking into consideration. Either you dont have cancer, or find it at the early stages.

I have Gleason 6 cancer and am on active surveillance. I’m crossing my fingers hoping they don’t find more. I go in next week for the TURP. My symptoms aren’t that bad, mainly low flow and high pressure due to enlarged median lobe. But after my biopsy a few months ago I did struggle a bit to go and it scared me, so I’ve elected to go ahead and get it done now rather than wait for it to be an emergency.

My TURP experience was similar to what krepid described. It was quite a while ago and the firehose is tending back to a weaker stream. I had a cystoscopy recently and the doc thought there was still a decent urinary path. The one side-effect I discovered is the impact on orgasm. It's hard to describe but I would equate it to being 'incomplete'. Like a stifled sneeze. The TURP probably impacted some nerves that are responsible for orgasmic functionality. I didn't bring it up with the urologist but maybe should have. Also, the ejaculation retrograde is a bit weird.

An alternative you might want to consider is do the PSMA PET scan. If there is cancer, hormone treatment should both kill the cancer and shrink the prostate (as well as the turmor). That will spare you the TURP. If there is no cancer, that means you have BPH. Then you can decide. Its a quality of life choice.
I hope that makes sense? I am just another layman trying make some sense of the whole thing.

Appreciate the thought. I had not thought of that path and no one had suggested it. The Mayo Clinic’s recommendation was to treat the BPH issue without considering the cancer status because I am Gleason 6 with a very low chance of it having escaped the prostate given my Decipher score. Their rationale was that there is a 50/50 chance that I would not ever require treatment, and if I do, it should be 7-10 years in the future. If I could make it ten years without treatment that would be success for me. Appreciate the idea, however. Very interesting.

My TURP was performed 15 years ago, and the experience was much like that @dlkreps reported yesterday, with a major additional adventure. First, the TURP was fairly common, as I understand it was for @dlkreps -- surgical procedure in the hospital, a catheter overnight, painless thanks to the anesthetics, followed by a good night's sleep with no memorable discomfort, and removal of the catheter the next morning. That's when my adventure departed from normal.

During the surgery, a small, lonely tumor was discovered on the lining of my bladder and removed. As customary, it was sent to the pathologist's lab and found to be a moderate malignancy in a pedestal tumor that was shallowly rooted in the lining rather than in deeper tissues of the bladder itself. The discovery led my urologist to prescribe another cystoscopy two weeks later so he could focus first on the whole bladder lining, then check my prostate for any fearful malignancies. A dozen more of the small pedestal tumors were identified on the bladder lining and removed in a TURBLG (bladder lining growths) procedure. They too were malignant but attached only to the bladder lining. Thankfully, my prostate was clear of cancer, and the bladder tumors led to no other metastatic cancers elsewhere. So I was a cancer survivor in 2010. That experience made it a lot easier for me deal with colon cancer last year.

Doctors thought my bladder tumors might have been caused by smoking, even though I quit smoking in 1996. There is a lesson in that for us all, I think. Martin

So, I've completed my partial TURP procedure. It went very smoothly. I was in and out of the hospital in a few hours. Wore a catheter for one day and had it removed the morning after surgery. It was painful having it on, and there were a few leakage issues around the penis. The removal was painful, but only for a second. Peeing after removal was very painful for several days, like razor blades. However it got better within a week. There was bleeding while urinating for two weeks, but now the stream is normal, stronger and no blood. I don't really have urgency issues. Peeing feels slightly different than before, but okay so far. Based upon my experience so far, I'd recommend the procedure. Plus, having Prostate Cancer Gleason 6 on active surveillance, I've had the least amount of surgical work done to fix the BPH problem, reducing the potential for complications down the line if and when I need treatment for the cancer. Folks had some good tips, like having tear-away sweats. That was huge for when I had the catheter in.