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Benign prostatic hypertrophy?  BPH symptoms in men are urinary frequency, difficulty starting and stopping stream of urine, weak urine stream, and needing to get up from bed at night to urinate.

Who gets this?  Only men.  More than 80% of men older than 80 years old have BPH.

Treatment of BPH is symptom-driven.  Most men do not like to wait for urine to flow in the night.  Many men will experience stabilization or improvement of symptoms over time without therapy.  Most men do not like the idea or “watchful waiting” to see if symptoms become less annoying.

It is thought that BPH may be an inflammatory reaction, so a study showed that NSAIDs (they used celecoxib) was helpful to decrease symptoms.  The usual medications used are alpha-adrenergic antagonists (like Tamsulosin/Flomax) or a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor (like Finasteride/Proscar).

This study brings to light that possibly NSAIDs (like ibuprofen) may help significantly improve BPH symptoms.  It may be worth a try….

Want more information?   http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1464-410X.2012.11559.x/abstract