Kidney stone treatment with holmium laser — no open surgery.

Many small ones do. What settles it is the size, where it has lodged, and whether the kidney behind it is being obstructed. If waiting is the safer course, you will be told that.

Four, and the size and position of your stone decide which one. Medical management involves no operation at all. Ureteroscopy — URS and RIRS — reaches the ureter and the kidney through the urinary tract. PCNL is the keyhole route for a heavy stone load. And where a stone sits in the renal pelvis, laparoscopic pyelolithotomy is an option too.

It is keyhole surgery for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), in which laser energy strips out the tissue narrowing the channel. Weighed against the conventional operation, men are typically discharged sooner, spend less time with a catheter, and hit fewer problems on the way through.

For most laser stone procedures it is one night. Where a stent has been left in, it comes out at a short follow-up visit.

Older men generally tolerate it better than the conventional operation, largely because it bleeds so little. Men on blood thinners can be listed as well, once a cardiac clearance is in hand.

They can. At the post-procedure review your consultant goes through the follow-up schedule and the prevention measures that apply to your particular stone.

That is precisely the situation the laser is picked for — holmium and thulium energy keeps bleeding to a minimum. Your fitness is still assessed on its own merits before a date goes into the book.

The ones to know about are a short spell of difficulty passing urine, urinary tract infection, urethral narrowing and dry orgasm. Erectile dysfunction happens but is rare. Every one of them is less likely than with the conventional surgical route, and all of them are talked through with you before you consent.

Flow usually improves and stays improved for years afterwards. A further procedure only becomes necessary where obstructing tissue was left behind, or where it grows back with time.

Either regional or general, chosen on the basis of the operation planned and your own condition. Afterwards you are watched for a short spell, then discharged — the same day in many cases, the next morning otherwise.

Yes. Laparoscopic radical nephrectomy, radical prostatectomy and radical cystectomy are all done here, along with TURBT for bladder tumours and radical penectomy and orchiectomy. Going in laparoscopically does not compromise how completely the cancer is cleared; what it cuts is the blood loss, the pain afterwards and the time you spend recovering.

If you are healthy and have nothing on your record, once a year does the job — and it matters more once you pass 40. Six-monthly testing is often advised instead where there is diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney disease in the family, years of painkiller use, or urinary infections that keep returning. The test itself is nothing more than a urine analysis and a blood creatinine.

Yes — the hospital is empanelled with the major insurers and third-party administrators. Hand your policy card and ID over at the Cashless Desk when you are admitted, and the coordinators build the file for your TPA; approval usually comes through in two to four hours. Prefer to check beforehand? Send the policy card along with the doctor's recommendation to info@nhshospital.in.

There is a urology OPD at the NHS OPD Centre in Ferozepur on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month, between 3:00 PM and 5:00 PM. The Jalandhar OPD itself runs Monday to Saturday, 10:30 AM to 3:00 PM, by appointment.