June is Men’s Health Month, a time to raise awareness about men's health concerns and ways they can be proactive about their health.
The choices that Bruce Gold faced last December to resolve debilitating symptoms from a severely enlarged prostate were to keep using a catheter or have an invasive surgery with unreliable results and a high risk of complications and lingering side effects.
Neither option was appealing.
Luckily, Gold’s urologist recommended a different treatment option: prostate artery embolization. The urologist referred Gold to H. Gabriel Lipshutz, MD, a Cedars-Sinai interventional radiologist who specializes in the minimally invasive, low-risk procedure that uses tiny beads to block blood flow to the prostate, allowing it to shrink.
Gold was a good candidate for the outpatient procedure, which took about two hours and left him “exuberant” about being free of symptoms, side effects—and the catheter.
“Ten days after the procedure, there was definite improvement,” Gold said. “Three weeks later, I was a very happy camper. And today, my symptoms are completely gone.”
