What Recovery Might Look Like For King Charles After His Surgery
King Charles III is starting 2024 by addressing a common health issue for men his age — an enlarged prostate. The clinical term is benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), and it's something that half of all men have by the age of 60 and up to 90% of men by the time they're 85, according to Harvard Health Publishing. At the time of this report, the king is 75. An enlarged prostate can cause problems with urination, and it may be treated with medication before surgery.
We don't know what other treatment King Charles has had to treat this condition or how long he's had symptoms and of what kind (even a king is allowed his privacy!), but we do know that he arrived in London on January 25, 2024, for the procedure. "The King's public engagements will be postponed for a short period of recuperation," a statement from Buckingham Palace read (via CBS News). Here's what that recuperation and recovery may look like.
We don't have confirmed details from the palace on exactly what surgery is being undertaken, but the most common surgical treatment for BPH is a transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP). The procedure, according to the NHS, may take up to an hour, and the procedure could be done under either general anesthesia (completely out) or spinal anesthesia (awake but unfeeling from the waist down). After the procedure, King Charles will likely be hospitalized for one to three days, and he'll have a catheter to drain his urine for a few days.
It could be six weeks before King Charles is fully recovered
The TURP surgery has been used to treat enlarged prostates for decades, and it's a minimally invasive procedure that doesn't cause much post-operative pain (via StatPearls). King Charles will return to his doctor (or given the fact that he's the king, a doctor may come to him) in the days after surgery to have the catheter removed if it's still in place after he's discharged from the hospital. That will also be the time to make sure that everything is healing properly.
He, like others recovering from TURP surgery, will likely notice some blood in his urine for a few weeks, per NHS. The king will undoubtedly be encouraged to drink plenty of water and lay off any alcohol and tea for those few weeks. He may also be advised to do kegels and other pelvic floor strengthening exercises since they can help speed up the recovery process.
It will likely be a week or even two before King Charles feels ready to be back at work. However, given how hard the king works and how busy his schedule is, our guess is that he'll try and get back to work as soon as he can — he's unlikely to milk it. If he does get back to work within a couple of weeks of surgery, he will likely still have more recovery time behind the scenes since it can take TURP patients four to six weeks to be fully recovered, according to StatPearls.
People appreciate King Charles going public with his diagnosis
The king has been praised for being open about having surgery on his prostate as typically the royals keep their health issues private. Google searches for "enlarged prostate" spiked after the January 17 announcement of the king's condition. Men may not typically feel comfortable talking about their health problems, particularly the prostate. An increased awareness could help more men get tested, and more testing could lead to catching more serious issues sooner.
"Anything that shines a light on prostate conditions like this can only be a good thing," Ali Orhan, chief executive of Orchid, a charity for men affected by cancer, told Daily Mail. "It shows men that this illness is not a sign of weakness, even a King can have a condition like this."
Raising awareness and helping to normalize prostate problems is part of why King Charles was so open with sharing details about his health. It also helped stave off speculation about his health as he takes time off from work. This is the opposite of what's happening with Catherine, Princess of Wales. Her hospitalization for "planned abdominal surgery" was announced the same day as the king's surgery, but further details about what her surgery was for have not been released.