I saw a picture of an ostrich with its head in the sand this week and it made me think. We all know the image. The ostrich hides its head so it cannot see the danger. And we laugh, because the danger is obviously still there. The ostrich with its head in the sand still gets eaten. Then I remembered that is exactly what I did for years. I was getting up all night. My stream had slowed right down. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew something was going on, and I just... did not look at it. Head in the sand. If I did not think about it, it was not real. It took a friend in an airport telling me straight before I pulled my head up. I think a lot of us do this. Not because we are stupid. Because looking feels harder than not looking. So I am curious about this group. What is the thing you kept your head in the sand about - prostate or otherwise - until something or someone made you look? And what got you to finally look?

I read about a man in Utah, Steve Howlett, who lived with an enlarged prostate for ten years before he treated it. Ten years of broken sleep. Ten years of knowing where every toilet was. Ten years of "it is just my age." His family went through it with him. They know it was hard, and like him the silence around the prostate kept them from realizing there were solutions. Ten years - it is a long time. He finally had a laser procedure at University of Utah Health and got his quality of life back. And my first thought was not about the procedure. It was about the ten years he spent putting up with it. I did the same thing in my own way - I had no idea I had a prostate issue until someone else pointed it out. We are good at explaining away the slow stuff. It just feels like getting older, and sometimes it is. But if the prostate was ok to talk about then less people would have to wait 10 years. Because I guarantee Steve is not the only man out there who is suffering because they don't know. So let me ask you straight: what have you been quietly putting up with and calling normal? Getting up at night? A weaker stream? No judgement here - I had the same problem, until a friend helped me. Is there a man in your life who could use this information? Could you raise awareness?

A candid one for the community, because you ask me about this more than almost anything. Harvard put out a piece on prostate supplements this week. My honest take, for what it is worth: I take them, I think they have helped slow my enlarged prostate, but I cannot prove it - I also changed my diet and started moving more at the same time. Harvard says the same thing: the hard evidence is thin, beyond fixing real deficiencies like low vitamin D. There have been some studies done and you can see the evidence in the document on Supplements in the Classsroom above. But you need to make up your own mind. I am not a doctor and I will not tell you what to put in your body. But I will not pretend the pills are magic either. I do know some supplements have worked for friends of mine, but that is hardly a controlled study. So, honestly: who here takes something for their prostate? What, and do you actually feel a difference - or is it more faith than proof? No judgment. I am genuinely curious what this community has found.

Wanted to share something with the community before it goes anywhere else. A doctor in Virginia pointed out this month that men are 25 to 30 percent less likely than women to go for a check-up. We put it off. We live about five years less for it. Most of you know my view by now. The thing that keeps men away from a prostate check is usually a picture in their head of an exam they do not want. And the first step is not that. It is a blood test - the PSA - and a conversation about whether screening is right for you. I did not know any of this back when I started. It took a friend pointing it out to me, and then once I started researching I realized I had symptoms for a while and just thought I was getting old....the most common answer men give. So I will ask the room: when you finally went and got checked, what was it that made you go? Was it a person, a scare, a number? I think your answers might help the men reading this who have not been yet.

This is so easy to miss. A piece going round has doctors explaining the warning signs of an enlarged prostate - and every one of them is something men brush off as age. Up at night. Weaker stream. Going more often. Never quite empty. I did exactly that. For a while I assumed it was just the years catching up. It was my prostate, and I had no idea. It is usually not cancer, and it is very manageable. But it sits quiet until someone says the words out loud. So tell me - what did you put down to "getting older" before you found out what it really was? Your story might be the one that makes another member here finally book the visit.