Preparing for a urology appointment

This is a preparation list, not a booking service

This project does not offer medical appointments, second opinions, or personal treatment plans. The list below is for a visit with your own clinician or with a urology office you choose. If you cannot pass urine, have fever and chills with painful urination, see blood in the urine, or have severe lower abdominal pain, do not wait for a routine opening. MedlinePlus says those situations need medical help right away. In the United States, call 911 for an emergency.

What to bring

• A list of symptoms and when they started, including nighttime urination, a weak or stop-start stream, leakage, pain, and any visible blood.
• The names and doses of prescription medicines, plus cold and allergy pills, sleep aids, and every supplement. Some nonprescription medicines can trigger complete urinary retention.
• Previous PSA results, urine tests, biopsy reports, and imaging, with dates. A photograph of the report is better than a remembered number.
• Family history of prostate cancer, especially in a father, brother, or son, and any known inherited cancer syndrome.
• Your questions, written down. Visits are short. The list keeps the important ones from being the ones you remember in the parking lot.

Questions that keep the visit specific

For urinary symptoms:

• What are the likely explanations in my case, and what would make you look for something else?
• Do any of my medicines need to change?
• Which tests would change the plan, and which can wait?
• If this is enlargement, what happens if I change drinks and habits first, and when would a medicine or procedure enter the discussion?
• What side effects matter for the options you are considering?

For a screening conversation, if you have no symptoms:

• Given my age and other health problems, how likely am I to benefit from looking for prostate cancer?
• What harms, including false alarms, biopsy, and treatment effects, apply to me?
• What will we do with the result?
• Can I decide not to be screened?

The National Cancer Institute notes that a clinician does not necessarily think you have cancer just because a screening test is mentioned. You can ask that question out loud.

How to use information you found online

Bring one or two pages, not a stack of advertisements. Ask whether the people in a study were like you, whether the outcome was a symptom score, a diagnosis, or survival, and whether the product or procedure matches what is being offered to you. Be cautious of any source that tells you to stop a prescription medicine. This library will not do that, and a stranger’s video should not do it either.

A worksheet packet you can order

The publisher of this site, Fieldnote Reading Room, LLC, sells a digital Urology Visit Prep Workbook for $24. It reprints the kinds of lists on this page as blank lines you can fill in: symptoms, medicines and supplements, family history, questions, and notes after the visit. Ordering it does not reserve a clinician, does not interpret your answers, and does not change urinary symptoms or a cancer risk. The order page shows the price before you submit the form. The form records a request. It does not charge a payment card.

After the visit

Write down the plan, the warning signs that should prompt a call, and the date of the next step. If the plan includes a prescription, the pharmacist and the prescriber are the right people for dose questions. If the plan includes watching a symptom, ask what “worse” means in numbers you can notice, such as nights awake or episodes of being unable to start.