Men’s Health week is a great opportunity to encourage men to share their stories and discuss their health and wellbeing.
This week’s theme focusses on having an open conversation about prostates. Raising awareness around prostate cancer is a role for everyone. It can impact men, trans women, non binary people who were assigned male at birth and it impacts, friends, family and individuals supporting someone who has a diagnosis.
Early prostate cancer will often have no symptoms because of the way the cancer grows, so ensuring any changes are picked up as early as possible is important. Often these changes will be noticed when you are urinating. Possible symptoms include:
- Difficulty starting to urinate or emptying your bladder
- A weak flow when you urinate
- A feeling that your bladder hasn’t emptied properly
- Dribbling urine after you finish urinating
- Needing to urinate more often than usual, especially at night
- A sudden need to urinate – you may sometimes leak urine before you get to the toilet.
(SOURCE: Prostate Cancer UK)
Whilst these changes can indicate non-cancerous problems such as enlarged prostate it is important to tell your GP any of the symptoms you are experiencing as early as possible. This allows your GP to find out what is causing them and provide the right treatment for you.
1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer and factors such as age, ethnicity and family history of cancer can put you at a higher risk.
Why not check your risk in 30 seconds using Prostate Cancer UK’s Risk Checker
