If your doctor says annual tests are frequent enough, I'd probably trust that advice. A lot depends on your level of anxiety. Some people get nervous with long intervals between testing, and when...
The dull pain in my groin area turned out to be a hernia....
I think yearly testing makes sense. You've had surgery and radiation. If your psa starts rising, my understanding is that there won't be anything to do for quite a while. Get tested less often and...
When I click the link, I get this: Your session has timed out. Please go back to the article page and click the PDF link again....
Your English is fine! I think you should see a radiation oncologist. A lot of doctors and researchers believe that you should initiate radiation at a lower level than 0.2. I started at 0.05. Search...
My urologist said that the better your erections are going into surgery, the better they are likely to be coming out. Not an iron rule, of course, but something to think about. The other factor is...
My understanding is that prostate cancer causes a slow, steady rise in PSA, not an abrupt spike....
That's interesting, but I'm not sure how you square that finding with the fact that after the introduction of widespread PSA testing, PCa deaths went way down, from 39 deaths per 100,000 in 1993 to...
After surgery I couldn't drink coffee because it caused extreme urinary urgency. I tried decaf coffee, and it still had the same effect, so the culprit must not have been caffeine. I switched to tea,...
Pratoman, it can take a long time to get used to a CPAP. Be persistant! It is hard to get good support in finding the right mask and the right pressure. There are some very good CPAP and sleep apnea...
Historically, institutions have worked to protect individuals who generate a lot of revenue. Epstein's operation must generate a great deal of cash for JH. Which makes me think that, if JH cut ties...
You've been on quite a medical odyssey. I'm wishing you many years of indolent follicular lymphoma (a disease I never heard of before)....
For very early salvage radiation the threshold is about .05, and you are less than half of that now. Wait and see. Still, it does not hurt to think about your options should the rise continue....
Austin is 70. which is on the old side for surgery. I'd like to know why he opted for surgery over radiation for his prostate treatment. I doubt we will ever know, since reportedly Austin values his...
It's good that you are planning to see both a surgeon and an RO. Read up as much as you can bear on the benefits and side effects of different treatment options. That will make your visits with the...
That is a great idea for an article. Given the abundance of misinformation on the internet, it is truly heartening to see that prostate cancer forums provide accurate information and help patients...
I think it would make sense to get a second opinion from another RO. I had salvage radiation and was never warned about those dire consequences. The only side effect I experienced was some relatively...
If you have not done so already, you should check your benefit level for different months of retirement. I was surprised to learn if I delayed my retirement from 69 years, 10 months to 69 years, 11...
I had one DRE after a prostatectomy. I don't know why. Nothing after my RT....
There is a very interesting Radiolab episode about this. One theory is that you can slow down time by having new experiences. In the podcast, the reporter tries to do new things every day for two...
I don't know if anyone has said this already, but even if so it bears repeating. If at all possible have your partner come to meet with the doctor -- with a notebook. Ask her to take notes. You will...
I know it's nearly impossible not to worry in your position. But you should keep in mind that many (most?) biopsies come back negative. Among those that come back positive, many are not dangerous and...
There is a lot of confusion about Medicare expenses, so some data may be in order. Medicare costs continue to rise, but the cost per beneficiary has leveled off and since 2011 has been essentially...
In the past few months I have experienced a new phenomenon -- I suddenly have to have a bowel movement and I literally can't wait. I've had a couple of small accidents when I couldn't get to the...
To add one more example, I had my DRE done by a nurse practitioner, and she found nothing abnormal. But PSA was high, so off of the urologist I went. He performed a DRE and found abnormalities on my...
Hello jotaToledo, You seem to be new to this board. Would you be so kind as to introduce yourself? Is English not your usual language and you are using a translator? This is usually a very welcoming...
I think you can go ahead and schedule an appointment with a radiation oncologist and ask the Uro to send over the file. No need for the the uro to say its ok to see an RO. It would make sense to wait...
After I had two successive test results without the <, my uro suggested I initiate radiation therapy. There is a debate about how high psa should rise before starting RT, but there is a lot of...
JNF -- Thanks for that thorough response. You know a lot!...
Congratulations on winning your battle! I found it very interesting/surprising that the rise in PSA was due to cancer cells in what was left of your prostate after radiation. I had the impression...
I don't think I've seen anyone post it, so I will. This link takes you to a "nomogram" that allows you to enter your information, and it will estimate chances of a recurrence at different intervals...
I'm curious why your PSA went down after the HoLEP, if none of the tissue removed was cancerous....
It might help at airport security if you have a letter from your doctor explaining that you have seeds that will upset the scanner. You could also mention to one of the employees that you are about...
I had surgery followed by radiation. I think I probably had a follow-up visit with the RO a few months after completing the RT, but after that I went only to see the urologist. After 2 years I quit...
Insurance is too complicated for a normal person to figure out. You should find a advisor to help you sort through the options. The Affordable Care Act created positions called Navigators to help...
I heard once that the default priorities of the surgeon are 1) get all of the cancer; 2) prevent incontinence; and 3) prevent ED. If those are not your priorities it would be important to have a...
Retention versus leakage, the big tradeoff. Having had both, I'd choose leakage. You never appreciate how wonderful it is to be able to pee until you can't....
Talk to the doctor. He or she needs to know what is going on. As I recall, I had a meeting with the doctor every week so they could see how I was doing....
At first I thought switching to decaf coffee would solve the problem, but it didn't. Spasms persisted. I was surprised that tea didn't bother me. Based on occasional experiments, I have found that I...
Fortunately I never needed to endure what you have gone through, but after prostate surgery I had a problem with bladder spasms. I quit drinking coffee and that helped a lot. Strangely, tea was never...
The full bladder is a problem and it leads to accidents, but the staff are accustomed to this and most gracious about it. In my case there were no short term side effects, but later I developed some...
My history is similar to yours: surgery followed by an undetectable psa followed by a rise in psa. When psa reached 0.05, my uro suggested radiation. Radiation treatment was not a big deal -- mostly...
While you are on ADT the PSA tests won't mean much. But then periodically we go in for the PSA test and the result thereof is the focus of a lot of anxiety, especially for the first several years....
Keep in mind that .013 is still very low. I don't know what the change in testing companies/methods means but it seems entirely plausible that what you are seeing is an artifact of the measurement...
That's great news. He should keep getting tested. After surgery I had one undetectable result, and then I lost the "less than" sign on the second test. On the third it went up. Remain vigilant!...
I decided to ask ChatGPT how good AI is at diagnosing prostate cancer. Bear in mind that ChatGPT is often wrong. Here is what it said: "Machine learning programs can be very accurate in assisting...
I had a social interaction with a radiologist yesterday, and in the course of our conversation asked him if AI was changing the field of radiology. He smiled and said the only reason he still has a...
You asked who is the best surgeon in the US. If you opt for surgery, it is good to have it done relatively close to home because it is major surgery with a lengthy recovery. After two nights in the...
Dear racquetman, You had been through hell even before you got this PCa diagnosis. I won't try to tell you whether you should seek treatment or not, as that is a very personal choice. Still, I think...