Two symptoms that wake you up in the night could be an indicator of a deadly disease that kills around 12,000 Brits every year. Health experts have listed the key signs of prostate cancer to look out for.
The disease is the most prevalent type of cancer in men in the UK, with approximately 55,100 new cases reported annually. It’s also one of the deadliest forms of the disease, causing the second highest number of cancer deaths among men in the UK.
As is the case with any illness, it’s crucial to get any signs checked out promptly. But symptoms often don’t appear in the early stages of prostate cancer, making diagnosis challenging.
As a result, many affected men can live with the cancer for years without knowing they have it. Symptoms typically don’t manifest until the disease begins to press on the urethra – the tube through which urine leaves the body.
Cancer Research UK explains: “Most prostate cancers start in the outer part of the prostate gland. This means that to cause symptoms, the cancer needs to be big enough to press on the tube that carries urine from the bladder to the penis. This is called urethra.”
More advanced cases of the disease are more likely to present with symptoms. This includes two that might cause you to wake up frequently in the night or struggle sleeping:
- Needing to urinate more often
- Back pain.
If the cancer starts pressing on the urethra, it is likely you will experience a change to your toilet habits. The NHS lists these as:
- Needing to urinate more frequently, often during the night
- Needing to rush to the toilet
- Difficulty in starting to urinate (hesitancy)
- Straining or taking a long time while urinating
- Weak flow
- Feeling that your bladder has not emptied fully
- Blood in urine or blood in semen.
However, it is important to note that these symptoms do not always mean you have prostate cancer. “Many men’s prostates get larger as they get older because of a non-cancerous condition called benign prostate enlargement,” the NHS says.
Either way you should speak to your GP if you notice any of these symptoms.
Back pain can occur if the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. Cancer Research UK describes this as back pain that “does not go away with rest”.
The NHS adds that bone pain, loss of appetite, pain in the testicles, and unintentional weight loss, are also potential warning signs of prostate cancer that should be checked out.
If you’re over the age of 50 you are eligible for a routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, which measures the level of PSA and may help detect early prostate cancer. You can ask your GP for this test.