Jim, yours was by far the best thread i"ve seen on this message board. Like you I was on testosterone replacement therapy for at least 10 years before my recently diagnosed prostate cancer The Endocrinologist and the Urologists recommended that I stop replacement therapy, at least until after surgery. And you are correct in diagnosing your depression on the lack of testosterone. My experience was that after being treated for depression for three years, after reading a book on testosterone I asked my psychiatrist whether low testosterone would be causing my depression. He said he did not think so. I asked my Urologist to do a lab test for hormones. Sure enough I was very low in testosterone (147) I was referred to an endocrinologist, who said that this was the lowest he had seen in an adult male. To think that the psychiatrist did not even know that low testosterone would cause depression.
I have read studies by Dr John R. Lee MD, a noted Hormone replacement specialist, and studies from Johns-Hopkins , the finding of which could lead to changes in this standard treatment for prostate cancer, which is testosterone deprivation. My studies on this subject show that there is at least a 50% disagreement on this theory. Conventional medicine is just beginning to recognize the true roll of sex hormones in prostate disease. There is a hypothesis that the balance of estradiol (estrogen) to progesterone and/or testosterone is an important factor in prostate disease. both Bph and Prostate Cancer. This hypothesis states that as a man ages, prostate levels of estrogen gradually rise and levels of progesterone and testosterone decline. Conventional medicines fear of testosterone is unfounded. In clinics that routinely treat men with higher doses of testosterone, the incidence of prostate cancer is usually less than in men without supplemental testosterone. These studies makes it clear that total anrogen blockade does not enhance longevity compared to men without total angrogen blockade. It is time to recognize that progesterone and testosterone are important hormones in men, and that normal physiological levels of these hormones do not increase the risk of cancer ; but, on the other hand,---MAY HELP PREVENT PROSTATE CANCER.
Siberian
68 years
psa 4.7 up from 2.9 in 12 months
TC1, gleason 3+3=6
3 positive out of 13 biopsies
prostate size 66cc