off topic, health alert for guys, PSA test & prostate cancer

mike95490

Sorry in advance - this is off topic, but I've just finished a harrowing 3 months, resulting in my having a radical prostatectomy. I just got my pathology reports back, and it looks like all the cancer was organ confined. Having just turned 50, in my annual physical, the doc checked off the blood test box for PSA. I flunked badly. This is how it was discovered, a simple blood test at my annual physical. At age 50, this was just barely caught in time before it metatstised (80% organ conversion). My advice to all the men here - insist the blood work be done starting age 40. If the doc looks sideways at you, look right back and say do it. It's not an expensive test, they don't need to draw a special vial of blood. I was told, as advaced as mine was, it started in my 20's, and easily would have been detected 10 years ago. I'm now sitting up, in my "depends" and waiting for nerves to grow back. I was not in any higher risk catagory, my dad is in his 80's with normal PSA, and I was unlucky to get the cancer, but lucky to have acted quickly enough to catch it, and get it removed.
Mike
/rant off

System2

Re: off topic, health alert for guys, PSA test & prostate cancer

No apologies necessary! THis information has to get out to more men in all kinds of ways for it to be taken note of. What's wrong with a mainly guy dominated forum (sorry ladies...show this thread to your men!).

So many of us are afraid of needles for a blood test ($25 in Canada), and don't get me started on how men freak when DRE is mentioned! (Digital...)

I'm 49 and have had PSA's done for 10 years. Better safe than sorry. Good luck on the healing!

crewzer

Re: off topic, health alert for guys, PSA test & prostate cancer

Mike,

Thanks for the head's up... I'm 55 and have had my PSA checked regularly for the past five years. So far, the result's are normal. Now, as for the rest of me being "normal"... :roll:

Take care,
Jim / crewzer

niel

Re: off topic, health alert for guys, PSA test & prostate cancer

heck i'm currently 50 and i've had a string of bad years with my health as some here know. i wasn't going to reveal all of this stuff here on the forum, but it may benefit somebody else. for instance now, i did not know my appendix went bad as i had no symptoms whatsoever excepting near the time of my appendix bursting i was getting abscesses. the doc said my appendix was rotting in me for a year or 2. they call that peritonitis(spelling?). the abscesses appeared anywhere on my skin and under a tooth(chronically) and i was told that they were all through my abdomen. antibiotics worked temporarilly, but in time more appeared and that tooth got pulled.
as bad as that was, nobody told me this could lead to inscissional hernias that later the doc said, i could live with them saying that was an elective surgery. he also neglected to tell me that my intestines could've strangulated and killed me. if you had seen these hernias you would wonder why they say you could live with that much of your guts hanging out. i wanted it done and that doc said not until the other operation was paid for so it was time to get another doc and another hospital as being out of work for an operation and its recovery period made me quite poor. yes, that was lawsuit material, but lawyers said it was a marginal case and not much money in it so they refused to pursue it. my wife complained due to my later developements to the hospital about this doc without my knowing. it seems he's no longer there. others beware of dr. stewart chetlin.
the 3-4hr operation on the hernias was done eventually(1yr later). this was a minimumly invasive operation by laproscopy(7 inscissions!), but in spite of that it was still many hours long due to the severity of the hernias. the operation failed to hold me together after about 4-5 months so another operation was done. this was the day katrina hit new orleans and was the last day i smoked too. btw, i knew the night before that n.o. would be wiped out. the 6hr operation went well and was a large mesh covering 75% of my abdomen. i was discharged on a friday and during that weekend i started to feel like somebody hit me in the stomach and soon found myself throwing up what little i ate. i went back to the hospital and they couldn't figure out what was going on with me. i was readmitted that monday, after tests were inconclusively done, for observation. i felt real bad and nobody ever found the cause until that friday mourning(3am) when i was watching the tv and all of a sudden i couldn't focus my eyes. i next started feeling dizzy. i started yelling for help as i started to lose it. i was semi conscious to unconscious from then on and remember somebody saying my bp was 70/32. i was taken to icu and was being prepped for emergency surgery. it seems nobody mentioned that the stress of major operations on the body can cause stomach ulcers to appear. the doc later said it appeared during the first hernia repair and went into remission until the next operation reactivated it. it had nothing to do with worrying btw. that ulcer made its way to an artery from my heart, ate through it, and i was then bleeding to death internally. yes, it appeared in my stool just prior to my episode(appeared pure black) and i was throwing chunky blood up too. sorry for the graphics, but i didn't know the symptoms of these things and others should watch for them. i am now on an expensive medication for the ulcer everyday and will be required to take it for the rest of my life.
do you think it ended there? nope, as i developed another hernia. the doc said that i will not be operated on as my lining is chronically bad and i am a high risk patient due to the appearance of the ulcer. he then forbade me from much activity and work saying i am dissabled and he won't operate on me unless my life is in danger. it took time, but now social security says i am dissabled too. yes, i had to appeal a denial and unknown to me at the time it seems that one of their representatives lied about what i said in order to deny me. a judge saw through it all and i am now dissabled by their standards.
nope this ain't the end. i gained weight as a reaction this time to the operation stress(they can't explain it to me how it occured, but i suspect temporary hormonal imbalance). i had gained 1lb per 3 days no matter what or if i ate and luckilly it stopped after i had gained about 75lbs. this also created high cholesterol levels and high glucose levels in me that i never had before, asthma, sleep apnea( i now know what a cpap machine is as i own one now), impaired liver function, and they found the right side of my heart is enlarging(causes are high weight and sleep apnea) just to name a few of the things that are going on with me.
that brings me to the present as i'm fighting to get my health back and although i'm on social security, i am unable to have medical coverage as they tell me there's a 2 year waiting period for medicare. welfare won't cover it because of the ss payments and i need that for my bills that went pastdue from my inability to work. think about all of this the next time you have a stomach ache. i'm not feeling sorry for myself at all although i wish it was different as this is all very frustrating. i am putting this here because the symptoms and repercussions i was unaware of and how one thing leads to another. if this helps anybody then good. there are others onboard here that have it bad too and many of them are worse than me so i am not one to complain of a sore foot when the guy next to me has no leg. :-(

System2

Re: off topic, health alert for guys, PSA test & prostate cancer

Neil my heart goes out to you. I hope youkeep fighting this as well as you are able despite the callousness of the system and those in it.

Coincidentally, while at my Rheumatologist today I asked the nurse to include a PSA in the next battery of routine blood tests. They test me to monitor my Rheumatoid Arthritis and my tolerance of the Enbrel medicine. So far I am lucky and the RA hasn't disabled me.

niel

Re: off topic, health alert for guys, PSA test & prostate cancer

thanks and i've had so much blood pulled from me in tests and i don't know if they did that one or not. i've been told i've got a touch of arthritis too and found condroitin/glucosamine to help, most notably in my knees. taken as directed it can be expensive. it does help heal rather than just masking symptoms though. if you have allergies to shellfish then do not take that.

System2

Re: off topic, health alert for guys, PSA test & prostate cancer

:-o OMG Niel - - I don't know where you get the strength to continue on, but thanks for not giving up, we need you here.

Re PSA and digital, a visit to a "men's wellness clinic" put on every year at our local Hospital, discovered my high PSA level about 10 or 15 years ago. That first digital was rather - - - I have no words for it, just remember being bent over the table and wondering "when will this end". By the way, that Doctor was aptly named "Dr Ram and no, that's not a joke, it's his real name!
Now i have a different Dr and by comparison to what that first SOB put me through, having it done now is a laugh. Seems my PSA is normally high, varies from 6 to 8 with the highest being 13 and that was back about 10 years ago, but has since settled to around 6.5 to 8.2. Had biopsies etc done, but no cancer was found, so have been keeping a close watch ever since, with yearly PSA and digital. I'm now 58.
Wayne

niel

Re: off topic, health alert for guys, PSA test & prostate cancer

thanks wayne. dr. ram, now that's a good one. my mother-in-law had a doc by the name of bedwell.