I am a 75-year-old male who is in good physical shape with some exceptions; I have Parkinsons (PD)
and must exercise (I'm involved in the Rock Steady boxing program for PD, I do weight training with light weight bar-bells, and lots of work with my treadmill (for balance, strength in the legs, breathing training, and more some weeks.

I have had all kinds of prostate difficulties since I was 40 and onward - constantly dashing off to locate bathrooms because, as others have said, if you have BPH (and I have a large prostate) you continually fail to empty your bladder to near completness I have had prostatitis on many occasions, probably 4 biopsies of my prostate, numerous MRIs and other scans for tumors that consistently proved completely or relatively negative and have had examinations of the bladder and prostate every couple of years to ensure there was no cancer (the disease my father died of). I've also been, lately, taking terazosin to control the bladder during the night & prevent waking up at night 1-3 times, which, at first worked wonderfully for a few months and then (i.e., now) I'm back to waking up once or twice for nocturnal peeing and wearing men's diapers. A couple of years ago I had what was called a urolift wherein two tiny stainless steal balls were placed in or near the bladder to stop urgent trips to eh bathroom to urinate. This new technology helped to eliminate jaunts to the bathroom to empty my blafdder for a couple of weeks, then things improved no more and I was back where I was before the urolift.

But two to three weeks ago I had bloody - completely bloody - urine and got very nervous and saw my urologist right away. He gave me an internal bladder exam - can't recall the name of the exam but it entails a complete examination of the bladder through the use of a rubber tube that is inserted what felt like a yard into my penis and up to and inside the the bladder and this is "televised" if you want to watch the inner search, which I did. It turned out that I had a huge stone sitting in (on) my bladder that was so large - 4 cm X 1.5 cm X .5 cm - he couldn't take it out in his office and I had to have the stone broken up by a laser and crushed into small pieces. I heal pretty quickly and a couple of days later there was no trace of the stone. The point is anything in or around your bladder or urinary tract (canal) can cause simple or severe blockage and finally cause some kind of damage to the bladder - and could prevent you from urinating, could scrape the bladder and cause excessive bleeding, and/or could release too much urine throughout the day and night that you can't (easily) control. I'm seeing my urologist on Wednesday and have a feeling that things in my bladder will gradually change for the better having had this huge stone excised from my body; perhaps now it has already begun to take off enough pressure on my bladder on a given day, or longer time frame, that can make my daily life less miserable.

Incidently, before I saw the stone sitting on, or partly in, my bladder, I never had any pain or discomfort. DIdn't even know it was there. But about five months ago my urologist suggested to me during a meeting I had with him that I could have a bladder stone or stone fragments that might soon become troublesome and will need to be eliminated.

- Howard J. Scheiber, PhD

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