“My belly feels like it’s about to burst, but not a drop comes out” ... 3 a.m., the agonizing humiliation of a breadwinner in his 40s or 50s brought on by cold medicine [The Body Off the Record]

[Financial News] The night of October 12, as autumn settled into full swing. It had been fairly warm during the day, but as soon as he stepped out of the subway station on his way home from work, a cold autumn wind, sharp as a blade against the skin, swept over him.
He shivers with the chill and sneezes repeatedly. “Maybe I’m coming down with something because of the change in seasons.”
After dinner, the breadwinner in his 40s or 50s returns home, opens a drawer and pulls out two pills of “multi-symptom cold medicine,” bought at some point he can’t remember, and tosses them into his mouth. He lies down, exhausted, hoping to feel refreshed by morning. But this ordinary, careless response will prove a disastrous misstep, sending him sprawling on the emergency room floor just a few hours later.
At 3 a.m., he jolts awake with extreme bloating in his lower abdomen, as if it is about to burst, and an urgent need to urinate.
He rushes to the bathroom and stands over the toilet, but not a single drop of urine comes out—not after one minute, not even after five. His lower abdomen swells hard like a balloon, cold sweat pours down him, and even his breathing grows labored. The harder he strains, the more excruciating the pain becomes, as if his bladder is about to tear. In the end, unable even to pull up his pants properly, he crawls along the floor and calls 119.
The medical name for this terrible calamity brought on by a simple cold pill is “acute urinary retention.”
According to urology statistics, 50% of men in their 50s and 60% of men in their 60s already suffer from “benign prostatic hyperplasia.” With aging and changes in male hormones, the prostate, once the size of a walnut, enlarges to about the size of a tangerine and presses on the urethra. It is a hidden time bomb inside men in their 40s and 50s who have noticed a weaker urine stream and a feeling that their bladders are not emptying fully, yet have tried to dismiss it by saying, “That’s just what happens when you get older.”
The tragedy unfolds when the “fuse” of multi-symptom cold medicine ignites this time bomb. The problem lies in two key ingredients in cold medicine that stop runny noses and sneezing: “antihistamines” and “ephedrine (a sympathomimetic).” These ingredients paralyze the bladder muscles’ ability to contract, robbing them of the force needed to push urine out.
At the same time, they cause the smooth muscle in the prostate surrounding the urethra and the urethral sphincter to contract sharply, clamping the urethral opening shut. In other words, a medical chemical reaction takes place: the force to push urine out disappears, while the exit is locked shut.

As a result, the bladder fills with 500 ml to as much as more than a liter of urine. The pressure inside the bladder exceeds its limit, and the patient writhes in excruciating pain beyond imagination.
The only way to end this hellish pain is to be taken to the emergency room, where a thick catheter (urinary tube) is forcibly inserted through the urethra and into the bladder. The moment they lie on an emergency room bed with their pants lowered and have the urinary tube inserted, men in their 40s and 50s are confronted with devastating shame that goes beyond physical pain.
It is an agonizing moment when a breadwinner’s fragile pride—having wanted to appear endlessly strong in front of his family—is utterly crushed by nothing more than a cold pill and an aging prostate.
Middle-aged men in South Korea are fiercely reluctant to acknowledge that their bodies are aging. They regard a weaker urine stream as a “decline in masculinity,” are eager to hide it out of shame, and feel that taking prostate medication wounds their pride.
But no amount of willpower is any use when acute urinary retention clamps the urethra shut.
It is not a matter of virility; it is an urgent distress signal from your body saying, “You’re no longer young, so please take care of yourself.”
In October, as the cold winds grow fierce, a single cold pill swallowed without a second thought could be the start of a night of awful pain for someone, with not a drop of urine coming out.
Before taking cold medicine, check the condition of your prostate and the medicine’s ingredients. What middle-aged men need is not unthinking endurance, but the wisdom to understand their own bodies.
[email protected] Jeon Sang-il Reporter