Dr Thomas with our nurses in Prep & Hold
If I decide to have PAE, what can I expect?
The procedure will be done at Methodist Hospital, not the clinic where you met our IRC doctor (usually Dr. Thomas)
You will come in early in the morning after fasting past midnight. Any medications you take in the morning should be taken with small sips of water.
You will get changed into a hospital gown (leave your valuables at home) and our nurses will start and IV and ask you a thousand questions.
Dr. Thomas will see you again in our prep and hold area to verify some information and give you a chance to ask any questions you want answered.
You will then go to the procedure room. These are high tech multi-million dollar rooms where we will perform your PAE. We have music in the room, just ask the techs to program in a Pandora station for you. Your nurse will give you medicine to help you relax and we will slide you over to the procedure table. Any hair at your groins will be clipped and the skin cleansed to kill any bacteria.
A large drape will be placed that covers you from chin to toes.
Dr. Thomas will enter the room and a "Time Out" will occur to make sure we are all on same page.
The procedure begins. It takes from 1 -3 hours.
You will get a sedative that helps you relax, many men fall asleep and don't remember the procedure. We continue to give you small doses of this medicine throughout your PAE to make sure you are comfortable.
PAE is done through a small puncture, the size of a pencil tip, at the top of your right leg. Often a second puncture at the top of your left leg is needed to allow us to get to the all of the arteries that feed the prostate.
If you stay awake for the procedure you will feel a warm sensation as the X-ray contrast is injected into your vessels, but you will not have any pain.
At the end of the procedure you will have a band-aid at the the spot where the puncture was made (or two if we used the left side as well).
Afterwards, you will go back to a room in Prep and Hold to recover. You can now eat and drink.
Two hours later you will be asked to walk around and tell us how you are feeling. At this point , if you are feeling well, you will be discharged to home.
For several days or even a week most men will feel a burning in their pelvis as if you had a bladder infection. This is a reaction to the prostate which is now inflamed because of the embolization. I will give you an anti-inflammatory medication to help with this. It is not uncommon to have some blood in your urine or stool for a few days. Within a week most patients report that these symptoms caused by the PAE have resolved.
You should continue to take whatever medicine(s) (like Flomax or Proscar) you were on prior to the PAE...It takes a while for the effects of PAE to take hold.
After a couple of weeks you will notice that you are urinating easier, that you can go longer before needing to urinate again, and that you get up at night to urinate less often. Your prostate is shrinking. And it will continue to shrink for many months. As it shrinks your symptoms improve. I will transition you off of your prostate medicines as you improve.
It does not shrink away to nothing. But for 80% of men it shrinks enough that no other procedure is needed.
You will come in early in the morning after fasting past midnight. Any medications you take in the morning should be taken with small sips of water.
You will get changed into a hospital gown (leave your valuables at home) and our nurses will start and IV and ask you a thousand questions.
Dr. Thomas will see you again in our prep and hold area to verify some information and give you a chance to ask any questions you want answered.
You will then go to the procedure room. These are high tech multi-million dollar rooms where we will perform your PAE. We have music in the room, just ask the techs to program in a Pandora station for you. Your nurse will give you medicine to help you relax and we will slide you over to the procedure table. Any hair at your groins will be clipped and the skin cleansed to kill any bacteria.
A large drape will be placed that covers you from chin to toes.
Dr. Thomas will enter the room and a "Time Out" will occur to make sure we are all on same page.
The procedure begins. It takes from 1 -3 hours.
You will get a sedative that helps you relax, many men fall asleep and don't remember the procedure. We continue to give you small doses of this medicine throughout your PAE to make sure you are comfortable.
PAE is done through a small puncture, the size of a pencil tip, at the top of your right leg. Often a second puncture at the top of your left leg is needed to allow us to get to the all of the arteries that feed the prostate.
If you stay awake for the procedure you will feel a warm sensation as the X-ray contrast is injected into your vessels, but you will not have any pain.
At the end of the procedure you will have a band-aid at the the spot where the puncture was made (or two if we used the left side as well).
Afterwards, you will go back to a room in Prep and Hold to recover. You can now eat and drink.
Two hours later you will be asked to walk around and tell us how you are feeling. At this point , if you are feeling well, you will be discharged to home.
For several days or even a week most men will feel a burning in their pelvis as if you had a bladder infection. This is a reaction to the prostate which is now inflamed because of the embolization. I will give you an anti-inflammatory medication to help with this. It is not uncommon to have some blood in your urine or stool for a few days. Within a week most patients report that these symptoms caused by the PAE have resolved.
You should continue to take whatever medicine(s) (like Flomax or Proscar) you were on prior to the PAE...It takes a while for the effects of PAE to take hold.
After a couple of weeks you will notice that you are urinating easier, that you can go longer before needing to urinate again, and that you get up at night to urinate less often. Your prostate is shrinking. And it will continue to shrink for many months. As it shrinks your symptoms improve. I will transition you off of your prostate medicines as you improve.
It does not shrink away to nothing. But for 80% of men it shrinks enough that no other procedure is needed.