Is There Any Benefit
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If you try this exam yourself, won't find much out. Unlike a self testicular exam, which is very easy to do, a self prostate exam is impossible to do efficiently. Unless you have extremely long fingers. Kind of like a Chimpanzee.
If you try it, you'll see the mechanics of it makes it very difficult to get your own finger in far enough to reach you own prostate effectively.
If you can reach your prostate, you more than likely can not touch the whole prostate gland (unless, again, you have monkey fingers). You will be able to reach the base of it, but that is probably all.
Is Practically Useless
A prostate self exam is a digital rectal exam that your try to do yourself. If you really want to know what's happening in there, go get a digital rectal exam from a good urologist who specializes in prostate problems. He'll know what he is feeling.
By yourself , even if you could reach in far enough, you don't even know what you're really feeling for. But, you can probably locate the prostate gland and do a nice light prostate massage.
For this reason, learning the location of your prostate gland and how to reach it can be of great benefit.
Learning self prostate massage is always a good idea. Trying a prostate self exam will help you locate your prostate gland. This will help you with learning where to do a correct self prostate massage. And, learning self prostate massage is one of the most important things to know in maintaining prostate health.
Your prostate gland is about the size of a walnut. Normally. So if you feel a baseball in there you know it's enlarged. But, by yourself, you may not be able to feel that much of it.
Neither would you probably notice the difference in the normal tissue or most tumor tissue.
The worst thing you can do is poke around too hard and cut yourself with your fingernail. That could cause a serious intestinal infection. And I do mean serious.
A partner can be beneficial in a self prostate exam in that the other person can reach more deeply inside. But, about all you will find out from them is the approximate size of your prostate. As I mentioned, tumors are not always easily recognized except by someone with prostate exam experience.
The whole point of a prostate self exam, or digital rectal exam (as it is formally called), is to feel for abnormalities in the prostate: Enlargement or tumor. That's all it can do. Nothing else. And you have to know what you are feeling. So let a professional do it. A prostate self exam is just not going to really help you.
If you're having prostate problems, just go spend the $175 and get a prostate exam (digital rectal exam) from your Urologist. He'll at least know what he is feeling. He can also do other tests and check for obvious bacterial problems.
The prostate self exam is not going to tell you anything 95% of the time. This is because:
- You can't reach in far enough
- You don't have enough experience to know what to feel for
- You don't know what a healthy prostate should feel like
Sure, if you feel a baseball in there you know it is swollen. If that interests you, try it out. Just be sure to clip your finger nail first.
All in all, a prostate self exam is just another one of the multitude of almost totally useless things you can do for yourself. But, a prostate self exam may satisfy your curiosity quite nicely!
Be Well.....
William
