Transcript of Video
I’m Russell Libby with Northwoods Urology of Texas, and today we’re gonna be discussing the men’s wellness evaluation. Today, we’re gonna be talking about men’s health in general, and when people show up in my office. Now, there’s no standard guideline as to when you need to come in to see a urologist, but I can tell you a little bit about my practice and when I start seeing men, at what point in their life, and kinda what we talk about.
So first of all, I see men and women, but when men come in and they don’t have a specific complaint, they often are just referred by their primary care doctors. Typically, they come in around the age of 50 to get evaluated by a urologist, and what we’ll do is, we’ll sit down and have a thoughtful conversation about how they’re urinating, how their erectile function or dysfunction is, and we’ll come up with this treatment strategy based on kind of what’s reasonable. What we’ll do is we’ll sit down, I may ask you some questions like, “How is the force of your stream? Are you having to strain to urinate? Are you having any blood in the urine? Are you having any burning urgency, frequency when you pee?”
If you answer yes to any of these questions, we can work it up further. Oftentimes, men pee fine, but still coming to see me to make sure that you’re fine is important. What we see over time is that men who struggle with urination and have to force their stream may have a condition called benign prostatic hypertrophy. This is a treatable condition as long as it’s caught early. The goal of seeing me for an evaluation is to make sure that you stay in the safe zone, and that was what we talk about with all my patients. In terms of urination, I think that gives a basic evaluation. We’ll then assess your erectile function or dysfunction.
Men come to see me, and we talk about ED, or erectile dysfunction, and really that’s an assessment as to how a man can get an erection, how long they can keep it. So I think, it’s important to sit down with a urologist at some point, as you start to get a little bit older, maybe into your 40s and 50s, just to assess how you’re urinating, how your erections are, and just generally assess your urologic health. Now, as you start to get a little bit older into your 50s and 60s, it’s also important to stay aware of prostate cancer and make sure that we screen appropriately for any urologic conditions like blood in the urine.
These are the types of questions that arise during an initial evaluation with a man, and I think, it’s important to discuss. I want you to know that when you come in to see me that we can discuss anything on your mind. Everything is fair game and nothing should be shunned away from because of a social stigma. When you come in to see me, everything’s private and confidential, but also don’t feel like stiff when you walk in, you can come and just lay everything out there for me. When we come into an agreement with you as a patient and me as a doctor, it’s important that you feel very comfortable with how you’re urinating, your sexual health.
And in order to do that, you need to really find a urologist that you’re comfortable with sharing that information. And I can tell you that my patients have been very happy, we share laughs, we share tears sometimes, but it’s important in getting everything out and just discussing things. If you think that you need to be evaluated, and you’d like to come see me, I’m Russell Libby with Northwoods Urology of Texas. And I’d be happy to sit down and talk about your urologic health.