Can You Live Without a Prostate: Does The Removal Shorten Your Life?

How Essential Is the Prostate? | Can You Live Without Prostate Gland| Benefits Of Removing Your Prostate| Our Final Thought

Prostate problems can take a toll on you, costing you a fortune in never-ending treatments and distracting you in life. Therefore, removing problematic prostates might cross most men’s minds to alleviate the adversity. But can you live without a prostate?

You can live without a prostate removed after developing problems, but not without a few side effects. Prostatectomy, a proper surgical procedure for removing the prostate, can reduce it to its regular size or remove it entirely.

Living without a prostate should be much better than having to endure the suffering of a problematic prostate. However, it’s a decision that your should make when fully informed.

This article explores the possibility of living without a prostate, the side effects and the overall quality of life after a prostatectomy.

How Essential Is the Prostate?

Primarily, the prostate produces semen, a fluid that offers a medium for transporting sperm from the ovum for fertilization after ejaculation. Moreover, this gland helps in hormone metabolism, transforming the prostate into a more active form called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). The prostate also helps regulate urine flow, making it more seamless.

However, these functions become less prominent, and your prostate may not help you find your balance as a man, be it producing semen, testosterone activation or regulating your urine flow. That begs the question; can you manage a lifetime without a prostate? Please read on for insight below.

Can You Live Without a Prostate?

You can live without the prostate and survive a lifetime. However, as we’ve seen earlier, prostates play a significant part in men, not only in semen production but your urinary function and testosterone production.

While you can live with your prostate removed, your quality of life can be somewhat affected. Regardless, that depends on your perspective and how you view removing your prostate, whether it helps you or is a bad idea.

Can the Prostate Be Removed Completely?

You can completely remove your prostate through a surgical operation called a prostatectomy. This operation may, however, not always entirely remove your prostate but a chunk that makes it appear overgrown beyond the standard size. It’s quite an intrusive procedure that requires more qualified and experienced hands for safety assurance.

The process usually leaves no stone unturned because, as it should, it eliminates every problem your prostate has. Your doctor should advise you to remove it entirely or reduce its size. Also read: The Symptoms Of Prostate Problems

That should offer you a chance to make an informed decision you’re willing to take with full consent. A proper judgement of what you want to do with your prostate should also help you avoid the distress of living without one.

Why Do Doctors Perform Prostatectomies?

Your doctor may recommend performing a prostatectomy if you have localized prostate cancer. This process helps contain your cancer and prevent spreading to other areas, including the pancreas and adjacent zones. Sometimes, your doctor may remove the lymph nodes to avoid more damage. Also read: Can Enlarged Prostate Be Cured And How Long Does It Takes?

Nonetheless, your healthcare provider can recommend removing your prostate to combat issues like enlargement and irritation due to increased size. If so, only a chunk to reduce it can help alleviate any symptoms of your urinary problem and offer you relief. This process has its benefits and a fair share of disadvantages, as we’ll see below.

What are the Helpful Benefits of Having Your Prostate Removed?

Your prostate may be essential for your manly functions, and removing it may seem infeasible and unthinkable. However, it helps to live without one then living with a problematic prostate that deteriorates your quality of life. Here are the benefits of removing your prostate.

• Relieved Urinary Symptoms

An enlarged prostate, for instance, interferes with your urinary function. A compromised urinary function makes you less able to regulate urine flow, and you may experience difficulty doing so. Moreover, your urge to urinate frequently may increase even though you won’t feel like peeing.

These symptoms can be niggling and make you uncomfortable, leave alone embarrassed. Most people prefer living without a prostate if nothing seems to improve these symptoms.

• Eliminates the Risk of Prostate Cancer

While you can treat your prostate cancer, you must be quick and able to identify it in its developing stages. However, this condition can be incredibly challenging to treat, especially if it’s drastically affected your prostate. Living without a prostate is better than enduring one affected by prostate cancer, which can mostly threaten your life.

Removing a portion of the prostate is usually the preferred option by most men if the tumor is only localized. However, taking it all out should help you live better.

• Better Quality of Life

A vast majority of men having prostate cancer prefer taking it out than having one that irritates them. It helps them improve their quality of life, even though it brings a few challenges.

These shortcomings are usually easier to live and deal with than having to endure more compromising symptoms that cancer and other prostate problems get. Prostate removal takes the edge off the suffering that men dread to survive, making it a much better option.

What are the Effects of Removing Your Prostate?

Removing the prostate always leaves some marks you should be aware of. Removing your prostate means compromising other essential body functions, including testosterone activation and urine regulation. So how does removing your prostate affect you?

Urinary Incontinence – urine incontinence is the inability to retain urine in your bladder when it’s full. Although it’s sometimes possible to, you may not even realize or feel like you’ve pissed yourself when it happens.

This condition may be common with men with prostate problems but is highly possible to occur after a prostatectomy. It’s a jittering condition that can unsettle you; it’s often treatable through taking anticholinergics, including fesoterodine, oxybutynin, and solifenacin.

Erectile Dysfunction – Erectile dysfunction is also one of the typical side effects of removing and living without a prostate. The condition mostly happens in men who undergo the process, but men with an ailing prostate are also in the mix.

Your doctor should assess your current situation and weigh it with the aftermath effects of removing your prostate. That’s because living with an ailing prostate may still cause ED, but the additional impact living with your prostate has may worsen your condition.

Emotional Distress – Men who remove their prostate should be okay with living without one. That makes comprehensive consultations with your health provider a must, and getting insight into the impact on quality of life is essential to help you make an informed decision.

Some men realize that removing their prostate may not help much and instead compound the problem with issues like urine and fecal incontinence and erectile dysfunction. However, keeping all these effects in mind should help you be more content with your decision.

Conclusion

You can live without a prostate, especially if removing it is more practical than living with one that nags you to the core. However, that’s a decision you should make while vastly informed to avoid distress from dealing with the possible side effects. Your doctors should help you make this landmark decision considering it’s your only last option for a better quality of life. Regardless, you can ask for more recommendations and the possibility of only reducing your prostate size than removing it if it’s enlarged.

Medical Discalimer: The information provided here On Geeks Health website is for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. If you have or suspect a medical problem, promptly contact your healthcare provider. Reliance on any information in this response is solely at your own risk.