hey guys over 40, and anyone else who cares to answer.....ann exam this year revealed an elavated PSA, this is an early detector for prostate cancer...mine 7.5...last yr 5.5....NORMAL IS 4.....going to physican, urologist, in afew days, hope a retest shows something different...i heard/read that i should abstain from sex for a few days before,...anybody else have any study material or expiernce here....that are willing to share...thank so much
Lots of experience on this one.
First, you don't have to abstain from sex. It won't change anything. It IS important that they check your PSA with more than with just the quick and dirty ELISA test. There are more accurate means of testing PSA levels, they just cost more than the standard ELISA.
Second, bite the bullet and
insist upon a biopsy of your prostate. Sure, it's not the most comfortable procedure in the world, but a root canal it 100 times more painful. There are other things, such as calcium deposits, that develop and aggravate in the prostate gland causing a slightly higher PSA number.
Third, if your biopsy is positive
DO NOT PANIC. Your urologist will recommend a series of other tests to determine the stage of the adenomas growing in your prostate. An MRI and CAT scan will probably be part of the routine as well as one of those intrvenous radioactive dye look and sees, too. At the moment I can't remember the name of the radioactive dye test, but it's like an MRI or PET scan.
Fourth, if your urologist determines that you do have adenomas growing in your man walnut, and especially if the cancer is Stage 1, pick his brain about all of the options he recommends until he kicks you out of his office. Then by all means ask for copies of your medical records and consult a couple of other urologists.
This fourth step is WAY necessary. In the USA, despite what wonderful medical miracles are happening there, urologists still tend to have a slice-and-dice mentality about prostate cancer. Wrong.
However, if you have an especially intelligent urologist who's more interested in helping cure you than making his BMW payment and paying for all the braces on his five kids' teeth, use him as your point man for deciding what type of treatment you want to have. There are many more options than whacking out the prostate and having the urologist say "Thanks for the checks from your insurance." For example, upon verifying that I had prostate cancer the first thing my urologist advised me was "Don't take my advice!" We discussed the modern, cutting edge treatments as well as the older invasive techniques that are still done on tens of thousands of men each year. He then gave me a rather expensive injection that efficiently turned off my body's ability to produce testosterone for about 6 months while I checked around in the USA, Spain, France, and Argentina. Prostate cancer confined to the prostate cannot grow without testosterone.
Not all American urologists are like the one's I had the misfortune to meet, but I'm certain you will find the right physician to help eliminate the problem. Unfortunately, the three urologists I met with in Salt Lake City, Reno, and Sacramento became so excited when they looked over my Stage 1 cancer diagnosis I'm sure they would have been overjoyed to have removed my prostate gland right there in their offices with a Swiss Army Knife. I'm not joking. They all defaulted to "surgery -- the whole thing -- we may be able to save the nerves to your penis for an extra couple of thousand dollars." I call these doctors the Earl Scheib or MAACO paint job boys. "We can remove your prostate gland for 100 bucks. We can take out your prostate gland a lot better for 10,000 bucks. Now, what color do you want?"
Fifth, educate yourself. There is a prostate cancer support group web site (damn good one, too) that you can find by searching on Google. Misery loves company and there are plenty of men and their wives who have read all of the medical literature from all over the world and distilled it into understandable summaries including percentages of success rates for the various treatements and procedures. You'll hear from just about every urologist that prostate cancer is slow growing and not immediately life-threatening. Yes and no. Once the adenomas begin to grow into surrounding tissue your options begin to diminish and time grows short.
After six months I elected to have brachytherapy, invasive but not too invasive. It was my choice, not my urologist's. That's the important thing to remember. You have quite a few choices regarding effective treatment with almost 100% (note, not a complete 100%) success rate and still have many years of enjoyable fucking your brains out with your wife or girlfriends.
The one thing you do not have a choice about is ignoring a PSA level of 7.5! There is formula used in grading prostate cancer that helps direct you to the best treatment for you. It has to do with the size of your prostate, your PSA level and a couple of other things your urologist should share with you. I asssure you your urologist will calculate your cancer or potential for cancer with numbers that look like the following: 6.7.1 or 7.2.8, or 7.1.6. I apologize for not being more specific, but I'm so damn happy that I'm still in remission after more than 2.5 years (3 years in April 09 and last week's PSA test was 0.01 -- otherwise, undectable) that I've given into being delierously forgetful about the matrix charting, etc. Regardless, read up on this rating system. Many American urologists are of the opinion their patients don't need to know this shit, but American physicians (in my experience) tend to be a pissy arrogant bunch, especially male physicians. Sorry, but as a US Citizen who has had the opportunity to shop around Europe, South America and the USA for medical care, that's been my experience. (
Plus, I'm pretty damn arrogant myself!)
Not to scare too many men on this site, but may I point out that Frank Zappa died at age 50 of advanced prostate cancer. That tends to indicate that the prostate cancer began when he was 39-ish for it to nail him at 50. But he had several genetic disadvantages regarding the disease: his parents were Russian Jews, a minority group with a unique propensity for developing PC early and often.
Get checked. Get check often. And remember, there are a lot of worse things a doctor can stick up your ass than two fingers for a digital exam.
If you want more blather from me feel free to send me a private message.
Good luck and don't be scared. Just be frightened enough to do something positive about it. :wink: