I, like the person mentioned above, don't know all the stats/scores, back than if was never offered or mentioned just the PSA number was given!
It was 1995 and I was 47 and getting my first ever full physical. I had heard about PSA tests and asked if they would do that too and they said “we usually don’t if you under 50 with no family history but ok”. It came back 4.35 and they decided to biopsy and it was negative. The doc said let’s recheck in 6 months, when I went back it was 4.95 and they again biopsied and again negative. He said “you may just have a high normal PSA let’s check in a year”. When I went back a year later my PSA was 10.00 and they said they found one sample showed cancer. After much soul searching, since there wasn’t near the info there is now and the results for incontinence and impotency were high, I waited 3 months. My doctor called and said “a lot of good an erection is going to do you if you’re dead!” and I said “I’d rather be dead if can’t get an erection!” (remember this was before Viagra came out! He put me on Lupron for 6 weeks as I said I had a ski trip coming up I didn’t want to miss and he said he didn’t want to risk the cancer spreading….that was possibly the worse experience of my whole time! The Hot Flashes! Yikes! Lol
On March 26th 1996 I had a radical prostatectomy done and got out of the hospital 3 days later. I had the catheter in for 3 weeks and that was it. I was incontinent for a total of 9 days after and than no problem. My Doc attributed that to me being younger than most guys who had gone thru the surgery, and the surgeon I used at the time had done over 1000 surgeries. I decided I was going to be normal and told everyone of my close friends that the first morning I woke up with a “hardon” we would be going out celebrating at the bar… May 1st 6 weeks later we went out! I returned to normal sex life at that point. My surgeon said of the 1000+ procedures that he had done I was his Number one success story!
It’s only been in the last year when I have experienced some problems with erections , not all the time, but I can’t count on it, sometimes it’s just like when I was 25 and pointing straight up and sometimes not! so I started with Viagra and it works for me, but my doc mentioned Trimix and I have tried it. Both work but with Viagra it seems to last all night….I can have sex at 11:00 pm and again at 7:00 a.m. and I can tell it’s still working on me!
I didn’t go back in to have my PSA checked until the 5 year mark, as I didn’t want to know if It had come back as there wasn’t much more they could do and I was stubborn about having anything else done to me. At the five year anniversary I went in and my PSA was .5 , it was checked again at the 10 yr. mark and still at .5 Since I am now approaching the 15 yr mark I don’t know that I will check, I feel great, no incontinence or leaking ever since 9 days after the catheter came out.
Btw, I am in the medical profession and was able to check out surgeons back than and went with a community surgeon with no “National Reputation” but who had 5 of his patients call me to answer questions I had before doing the surgery. That helped considerably.