- Mar 19, 2006
- 38,423
- 461
- 83
- 74
Prostate exam
- Thread starter Old School
- Start date
The last one I had w/o a pill I closed my eyes (after going in and asking to be pulled out) and played 3-4 golf courses I have played in the past--took me thru about 45 minutes:tongue
just stopped by.....1st time in a little while...much love,my brother....hope that prostate is behaving....thinking it might be a good idea for you to skip visiting sportsaholic this summer for the annual "Clamp a Lobster On Your Dick" festival up in maine....
:00x12
seriously...going in for a cystoscopy(the old tube up the urethra..:nooo:.) next week(never had it done before...and may never again,depending on how it goes:lol: )... .. just a bladder check because it doesn`t empty fully(it`s because of the slightly enlarged prostate)......no biggie...everything`s fine....psa is solid....the finger check was fine(still wondering why the doctor had both hands on my shoulders during the test??)..
g.l. with the mri,hawkeye...
- Mar 19, 2006
- 38,423
- 461
- 83
- 74
not nearly as bad as you think..
make sure both nurses use both hands when the doctor says...
YEEEEEEEEE...........HAAAAAAAAAAA
POSITIVE WAVES YOUR WAY
:scared :scared :scared
No no no no no. NO NO NO.
Just looked this up and I have to say, that is where I draw the line. I'll go in for a prostate exam, but this? H-E-L-L NO! Not gonna happen.
That said, best of luck with check weasel. Hope it goes well.
Old School, thanks for the words of advice in this thread. Hope all is well with you too.
I can't stress enough how important that simple little check is. The check is quick, a little uncomfortable, and as necessary as it gets for men 40 and up. One quick check and my prostate cancer was caught in the early stages. Doing fine these days, things are progressing ok. I should update my other thread with specifics, just been so busy.
Just get checked, guys. No good reason not to. Good luck with your ongoing battle, Old School.
Just get checked, guys. No good reason not to. Good luck with your ongoing battle, Old School.
How do you think they train the docs that stick their finger up your ass? Really makes me wonder what they are taught.
:00x32
:00x32
A low PSA may give you peace of mind but a high level should not scare you into getting unnecessary tests.
There's plenty out there on the subject if you look.
The Inventor of PSA Says It Should be Stopped
The PSA test does not work. It has never worked and it will not work at any time in the future. There are now new versions of the PSA that are being touted as promising. These are just as worthless. Recently the inventor of the PSA test, Dr. Richard Ablin, has said the test is worthless. You read it right! The inventor himself said the PSA test should be stopped. He referred to it as, ?a hugely expensive public health disaster.? He went on to say it was, ?hardly more effective than a coin toss.? There have been numerous printed scientific articles in medical journals throughout the world that show the test is very inaccurate and can create more damage than benefit. Men, such as General Schwarzkopf, with a low PSA reading can still have prostate cancer. Men with elevated readings can be totally free of cancer. It is easy for PSA readings to be falsely elevated or reduced. Doctors in every corner of the world should stop giving this test.
Study Shows PSA Does Much More Harm Than Good
It was shown by Dr. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth University, that for every man that was ?saved? from cancer of the prostate, 50 men are unnecessarily treated (maimed) with chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. Even the American Cancer Society has confessed that PSA and mammogram testing are medical failures and they have issued a public apology for supporting it. They did a study with 76,000 males in a ten year time span and discovered that yearly PSA tests made absolutely no difference in deaths from cancer. The famed New England Journal of Medicine also has admitted that PSA testing is a failure. They discovered that for each male diagnosed with cancer as a result of a high PSA reading, 20 men were thought to have cancer when they didn?t. Most of these got needless treatments for cancer they did not have and especially biopsies which are harmful to begin with. This is all about greed and profits.
Just Say No to Biopsies
Do not ever let them give you a painful biopsy for any reason. Instead, get an effective, safe and inexpensive sonogram. If you want to dig deeper and pay a little more, you can do a color Doppler or an MRI. Here is Dr. Albin again who invented PSI testing: ?I never dreamed that my discovery four decades ago would lead to such a profit-driven public health disaster." We should pay particular notice to the fact that Dr. Albin used the words "profit-driven." He went on to say, "The medical community must confront reality and stop the inappropriate use of PSA testing." Dr. Albin further commented this would save billions and, "rescue millions of men from unnecessary, debilitating treatments."
Even if the test were reliably accurate it would still not save lives. If you are one of the small percentage of persons who has the aggressive type of prostate cancer, by the time it shows up in any test, it has already deposited its seeds throughout your body. If you have the common form, it grows so slowly that you don?t need to do anything about it. Don?t believe the "early detection is your best protection" lie.
An ounce of prevention is worth a hundred pounds of cure. Prostate and breast cancers are both caused by eating saturated animal fat more than any other thing. This causes high levels of estradiol and estrone in men and estriol in women. Stop eating eggs, poultry, meat and especially all dairy products. Americans get 42% of their calories from animal fats. Changing your lifestyle and diet are your best protection. Go for the inexpensive, effective and safe sonogram.
There's plenty out there on the subject if you look.
The Inventor of PSA Says It Should be Stopped
The PSA test does not work. It has never worked and it will not work at any time in the future. There are now new versions of the PSA that are being touted as promising. These are just as worthless. Recently the inventor of the PSA test, Dr. Richard Ablin, has said the test is worthless. You read it right! The inventor himself said the PSA test should be stopped. He referred to it as, ?a hugely expensive public health disaster.? He went on to say it was, ?hardly more effective than a coin toss.? There have been numerous printed scientific articles in medical journals throughout the world that show the test is very inaccurate and can create more damage than benefit. Men, such as General Schwarzkopf, with a low PSA reading can still have prostate cancer. Men with elevated readings can be totally free of cancer. It is easy for PSA readings to be falsely elevated or reduced. Doctors in every corner of the world should stop giving this test.
Study Shows PSA Does Much More Harm Than Good
It was shown by Dr. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth University, that for every man that was ?saved? from cancer of the prostate, 50 men are unnecessarily treated (maimed) with chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. Even the American Cancer Society has confessed that PSA and mammogram testing are medical failures and they have issued a public apology for supporting it. They did a study with 76,000 males in a ten year time span and discovered that yearly PSA tests made absolutely no difference in deaths from cancer. The famed New England Journal of Medicine also has admitted that PSA testing is a failure. They discovered that for each male diagnosed with cancer as a result of a high PSA reading, 20 men were thought to have cancer when they didn?t. Most of these got needless treatments for cancer they did not have and especially biopsies which are harmful to begin with. This is all about greed and profits.
Just Say No to Biopsies
Do not ever let them give you a painful biopsy for any reason. Instead, get an effective, safe and inexpensive sonogram. If you want to dig deeper and pay a little more, you can do a color Doppler or an MRI. Here is Dr. Albin again who invented PSI testing: ?I never dreamed that my discovery four decades ago would lead to such a profit-driven public health disaster." We should pay particular notice to the fact that Dr. Albin used the words "profit-driven." He went on to say, "The medical community must confront reality and stop the inappropriate use of PSA testing." Dr. Albin further commented this would save billions and, "rescue millions of men from unnecessary, debilitating treatments."
Even if the test were reliably accurate it would still not save lives. If you are one of the small percentage of persons who has the aggressive type of prostate cancer, by the time it shows up in any test, it has already deposited its seeds throughout your body. If you have the common form, it grows so slowly that you don?t need to do anything about it. Don?t believe the "early detection is your best protection" lie.
An ounce of prevention is worth a hundred pounds of cure. Prostate and breast cancers are both caused by eating saturated animal fat more than any other thing. This causes high levels of estradiol and estrone in men and estriol in women. Stop eating eggs, poultry, meat and especially all dairy products. Americans get 42% of their calories from animal fats. Changing your lifestyle and diet are your best protection. Go for the inexpensive, effective and safe sonogram.
PSA or prostate specific antigen implies that this antigen is only found in prostate gland tissue.
But, in 1995 Scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, showed that the same material in PSA tests was also in other types of cells including cells of lung cancer, myeloid leukemia, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and even sometimes in normal blood cells.
Prostate Specific Antigen is obviously not as specific an antigen as once thought.
As far as indicating prostate cancer, PSA level is about as accurate as a patient simply stating, "I don't feel well". Does that mean he has prostate cancer?
What PSA Level Actually Indicates
The medical profession recommends that men over 40 have a prostate exam and a PSA levels test. But, what does this test really show?
Elevated PSA only shows that your body is trying to fight something off. And that could be anything.
Dr. Evelyn C.Y. Chan of The University of Texas-Houston Medical School tells us raised PSA levels can happen for many reasons other than prostate cancer:
Prostate infection (bacterial prostatitis) of any type
Prostate enlargement of any type
BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia)
Even ejaculation within 2 days of the test can dramatically raise the PSA level
Does this mean a PSA test is worthless? Not entirely. It apparantly can be used effectively for diagnosing the progress of a prostate disease once the disease is defined.
Highly Ineffective
But, for diagnosing prostate cancer, a PSA levels test is highly ineffective. What it does do is sell a lot of prostate biopsys.
A Urologist who gets a "high" (above 4) PSA reading on a patient almost always recommends a prostate biopsy. This is a 15 minute procedure that costs about $1200.
PSA level tests have created a boom in the prostate biopsy business!
When PSA testing started, it more than doubled the amount of prostate biopsys performed.
Biopsy Complications
According to a Study at The Mayo Clinic, 17% of the 2258 prostate biopsys studied had complications that require further treatment. Primarily for pain, infection and internal bleeding.
In The New England Journal of Medicine, Drs. Fritz Schroder and Ries Krause were asked if prostate biopsys would save lives of the men who submitted to them. Their answer was, "No."
And according to James Eastham, MD, FACS, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center: only 1 out of 4 biopsys detected cancer that existed.
Biopsy Danger
The worst part of a prostate biopsy for someone who does have prostate cancer is that a prostate biopsy releases cancer cells into the blood stream. This greatly increases the man's chance of developing further cancers.
A normally healthy body usually detects stray cancer cells and kills them.
In order to get prostate cancer in the first place, a man's immune system has to be already compromised to some degree.
Prostate cancer, normally, remains very confined. In fact, in older men, prostate cancer left alone generally has no serious or life threating result.
When a prostate biopsy releases cancer cells into the blood stream of a man with a weakened immune system, his chances of the cancer spreading and growing are increased dramatically. This is because his immune system may not be strong enough to destroy the stray cancer cells.
Left alone in the prostate, 9 times out of 10, these cells cause no real harm.
It is estimated 1 in 6 men will get prostate cancer in their lifetime. Only 1 in 10 of those will be life threatening. That is still a large number!
But, 9 out of 10 times it is not life threatening.
PSA Levels Fluctuate
For Many Reasons
Again, Dr. James Eastham states: "Studying 1000 men, researchers found that about 1/2 of those who had a high PSA level, had normal results in the 2nd test."
He goes on to say the problem with most second tests (that show no difference) is that they are usually performed too soon after the first one.
He suggests waiting not a week, but about 6 weeks before the second test. This gives the body a chance to remedy whatever condition that may have caused the PSA levels to rise.
Even the US Preventative Services Task Force and National Cancer Institute are opposed to routine PSA testing. They believe the risks of follow-up tests (biopsy) and the treatment side effects may outweigh the possible benefits.
False Results
In PSA levels testing it is well known that there are many "false positive" results and "false negative" results.
Prostate biopsy is very profitable. PSA levels tests lead to far too many unnecessary ones.
The New England Journal of Medicine states: "(the) PSA test has been found to miss 82 percent of tumors in men under 60, and 65 percent of cancers in older men".
This is making some scientists recommend that men with even lower PSA level test scores have biopsys.
That, of course, would have even more men without prostate cancer enduring a risky prostate biopsy "just to be sure". And biopsys put men with prostate cancer at a much higher risk of spreading their cancer.
A Better More Accurate Test
Cancer cells (and cells with change that are predisposed to cancer) are graded with a "Gleason" score. In short, a score of 1 is something to be aware of. A score of 7 or up is considered lethal.
Ohio Health and Science University Cancer Institute has come up with a new method for determining a way to accurately predict tumor grade without a biopsy. They can do this just by knowing the patient's age and doing a few simple clinical test.
The method is relatively new. It was presented at the 41st annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncologists in Orlando, Fla. on May 14, 2005.
Because PSA levels test scores can be influenced by a large number of factors unrelated to prostate cancer, a high test score may cause you to submit to a possibly unnecessary or life threatening biopsy.
You now have a better option!
Be Well.....
But, in 1995 Scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, showed that the same material in PSA tests was also in other types of cells including cells of lung cancer, myeloid leukemia, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and even sometimes in normal blood cells.
Prostate Specific Antigen is obviously not as specific an antigen as once thought.
As far as indicating prostate cancer, PSA level is about as accurate as a patient simply stating, "I don't feel well". Does that mean he has prostate cancer?
What PSA Level Actually Indicates
The medical profession recommends that men over 40 have a prostate exam and a PSA levels test. But, what does this test really show?
Elevated PSA only shows that your body is trying to fight something off. And that could be anything.
Dr. Evelyn C.Y. Chan of The University of Texas-Houston Medical School tells us raised PSA levels can happen for many reasons other than prostate cancer:
Prostate infection (bacterial prostatitis) of any type
Prostate enlargement of any type
BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia)
Even ejaculation within 2 days of the test can dramatically raise the PSA level
Does this mean a PSA test is worthless? Not entirely. It apparantly can be used effectively for diagnosing the progress of a prostate disease once the disease is defined.
Highly Ineffective
But, for diagnosing prostate cancer, a PSA levels test is highly ineffective. What it does do is sell a lot of prostate biopsys.
A Urologist who gets a "high" (above 4) PSA reading on a patient almost always recommends a prostate biopsy. This is a 15 minute procedure that costs about $1200.
PSA level tests have created a boom in the prostate biopsy business!
When PSA testing started, it more than doubled the amount of prostate biopsys performed.
Biopsy Complications
According to a Study at The Mayo Clinic, 17% of the 2258 prostate biopsys studied had complications that require further treatment. Primarily for pain, infection and internal bleeding.
In The New England Journal of Medicine, Drs. Fritz Schroder and Ries Krause were asked if prostate biopsys would save lives of the men who submitted to them. Their answer was, "No."
And according to James Eastham, MD, FACS, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center: only 1 out of 4 biopsys detected cancer that existed.
Biopsy Danger
The worst part of a prostate biopsy for someone who does have prostate cancer is that a prostate biopsy releases cancer cells into the blood stream. This greatly increases the man's chance of developing further cancers.
A normally healthy body usually detects stray cancer cells and kills them.
In order to get prostate cancer in the first place, a man's immune system has to be already compromised to some degree.
Prostate cancer, normally, remains very confined. In fact, in older men, prostate cancer left alone generally has no serious or life threating result.
When a prostate biopsy releases cancer cells into the blood stream of a man with a weakened immune system, his chances of the cancer spreading and growing are increased dramatically. This is because his immune system may not be strong enough to destroy the stray cancer cells.
Left alone in the prostate, 9 times out of 10, these cells cause no real harm.
It is estimated 1 in 6 men will get prostate cancer in their lifetime. Only 1 in 10 of those will be life threatening. That is still a large number!
But, 9 out of 10 times it is not life threatening.
PSA Levels Fluctuate
For Many Reasons
Again, Dr. James Eastham states: "Studying 1000 men, researchers found that about 1/2 of those who had a high PSA level, had normal results in the 2nd test."
He goes on to say the problem with most second tests (that show no difference) is that they are usually performed too soon after the first one.
He suggests waiting not a week, but about 6 weeks before the second test. This gives the body a chance to remedy whatever condition that may have caused the PSA levels to rise.
Even the US Preventative Services Task Force and National Cancer Institute are opposed to routine PSA testing. They believe the risks of follow-up tests (biopsy) and the treatment side effects may outweigh the possible benefits.
False Results
In PSA levels testing it is well known that there are many "false positive" results and "false negative" results.
Prostate biopsy is very profitable. PSA levels tests lead to far too many unnecessary ones.
The New England Journal of Medicine states: "(the) PSA test has been found to miss 82 percent of tumors in men under 60, and 65 percent of cancers in older men".
This is making some scientists recommend that men with even lower PSA level test scores have biopsys.
That, of course, would have even more men without prostate cancer enduring a risky prostate biopsy "just to be sure". And biopsys put men with prostate cancer at a much higher risk of spreading their cancer.
A Better More Accurate Test
Cancer cells (and cells with change that are predisposed to cancer) are graded with a "Gleason" score. In short, a score of 1 is something to be aware of. A score of 7 or up is considered lethal.
Ohio Health and Science University Cancer Institute has come up with a new method for determining a way to accurately predict tumor grade without a biopsy. They can do this just by knowing the patient's age and doing a few simple clinical test.
The method is relatively new. It was presented at the 41st annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncologists in Orlando, Fla. on May 14, 2005.
Because PSA levels test scores can be influenced by a large number of factors unrelated to prostate cancer, a high test score may cause you to submit to a possibly unnecessary or life threatening biopsy.
You now have a better option!
Be Well.....
I know you're worried about your prostate, weasie, but why not get a sonagram or MRI instead of putting yourself through that pain next week. It's very unlikely they will find something wrong. I bet he's giving you the test because you keep insisting there's something wrong and he's just trying to give you peace of mind.
After reading up on the PSA test and how many men went through painful biopsies for nothing, damn near everything scares me about doctors and tests.
I did read that a low PSA level is a good thing but just because you have a high level doesn't necessarily mean you have cancer.
The finger is still the best way to be tested. :facepalm:
