Fairwind said...
ED and incontinence are the price you pay for staying alive...Millions of people with Terminal Cancer would trade places with you anytime...
If you can't deal with the ED, go on ADT.....Then you care about ED any more....
Just personally speaking, just my opinion and no offense, I don't agree with the first sentence from above.
First, unlike so many other cancers out there, what really were his odds of dying from his(I refer to MK1965) low volume G3+4 PCa in, say, 10 or even 20 years, even if he did nothing at all? True, there would be some risk that many would not be willing to take, but he may be thinking the risk to reward ratio was simply not worth it.
Next, even if he did no conventional medical treatment at all, he could have investigated many life style changes, including diet and exercise and maybe even supplements, that numerous studies show would increase his odds of survival for a lot of years even further while he awaited the ever improving treatment choices, until they finally have one that does not include a good chance of devastating and life long SEs.
And finally, if he chose treatment as the price for staying alive, he obviously did not have to choose surgery. No one has to choose surgery in order to get a pretty high chance- maybe even as good, or dare I say it possibly even better chance- of surviving PCa. And it surely must be admitted that- though things can sometimes go wrong with other treatments, the common SEs of other treatments are way down the scale compared to the immediate SEs that so often accompany surgery. Add to that the pretty fair chance that you will end up with those other treatments anyway, with the possibility of even worse SEs when combined, and it is clear that a good argument can be made for some other treatment than surgery to start with.
But, these things are endlessly debated here, and we will probably never all agree on the answer. However, it does seem clear to me that he did not have to pay the price of incontinence and/or ED in order to stay alive. He would most likely still be alive years down the road even if he had done nothing, and especially/even more likely if he had made major lifestyle changes. And he would almost certainly still be alive for many years had he chosen a treatment with far lower odds of such devastating and immediate SEs. Frankly, I can really sympathize with, and understand and relate to, his feelings on this. But I know many feel the opposite.