About time I joined the thread. Iainc and I came up with the idea for the Grampian ride to promote awareness in men following his treatment and my (almost identical) history.

Me – diagnosed out of the blue, no family history no symptoms, aged 48. Picked up due to a routine psa when I was 45 that was a little elevated – 3.8 I think – then gp insisted I had another three years later – 6.9. The jump set the alarms off. Shows the importance of knowing roughly where your baseline should be.

Like Iain, initial diagnosis was low grade PC, watch and wait. I demanded a second opinion, that came back saying it’s the aggressive version, it was removed a few weeks later and was readying itself to break out.

Full recovery saw us in the grampians eight months later.

We wanted to highlight the importance to us of the routine psa test, as above and in the article there is a persistent attitude it’s only relevant in the elderly. I am here today as my GP didn’t take that attitude. My consultant has treated guys in their late 30s with the disease. That’s very unusual – don’t panic – but equally don’t assume it just goes for the old guys.

If you do ever go through it, we also wanted to show you can continue to lead a full life afterwards too. Hopefully the article demonstrated that. The surgery doesn’t improve riding skills though.

My thanks go to Iain for getting me through, sanny for a great trip and article, the boys for such a great few days and all of you who supported us.

ononeorange – Member
Picked up due to a routine psa when I was 45

How so, I thought it wasn’t “routine” to test?

I never know figures of things I might have been tested for, they never tell me. Had a general load of tests from bloods and other after a visit to GP year or two back and they decided to do a load of general tests. No idea what for and no idea what the results are other than if I don’t hear back then I’m alright.

And yet campaign sites for awareness of various conditions often encourage you to know your whatever score of whatever.

Even simple things like cholesterol. I’ve probably been tested a number of times and it’s said you should know your score but I get no details.

The trouble with anecdotes (not the one above) is you’re never going to hear from people that they had an unnecessary procedure. Christ, if it was me (and it easily could be) I’d tell myself stuff like thank god I got checked and they caught it in time. Cognitive dissonance init?

As said upthread, US has the same prostate cancer death rate as here, but detects more and does something like twice as many operations. That’s a lot of people sent on a ‘cancer journey’, chopped about and left possibly impotent/incontinent unnecessarily. You don’t hear this from them. (I saw one of our leading urological surgeons and surgical researchers at a research conference open a presentation with a picture of a speedboat. His US counterparts buy a lot of these.)

Anyway, until the research evidence changes, for me if I got worried for whatever probably weeing related reasons I’d go to my GP and take it from there.

Scotroutes – hello! What I meant by routine was that it wasn’t done for any specific prostate reason. I had a minor surgical procedure for something entirely different and the doc chucked in PSA as I was over 40. Bloody glad he did.

Gotcha! Sorry to be labouring the point here, just trying to get it clear in my head.

Onone thanks for the post. Have only ever had the finger test, maybe time to get a blood test to establish a baseline.

@deadkenny (apologies for going on about France again but I know their system) you get your test results here. Everybtest I have ever had I get the original and the doc gets a fax/email. This includes the MRI where I have all the photos, digital images and the diagnosis. When my Mum had an MRI she was told nothing apart from “resukts will be sent to the Doctor please make an appointment”

Doctors are professionals like any other, they make mistakes all the time. I find it quite staggering that we seek multiple opinions for so many things in our lives but rarely on medial issues.

+ 1

C4 were live broadcasting a colonoscopy yesterday, if anyone is intertested

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_fOhCrHroM[/video]

‘Huge leap’ in prostate cancer testing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38665618

The biggest leap in diagnosing prostate cancer “in decades” has been made using new scanning equipment, say doctors and campaigners.
Using advanced MRI nearly doubles the number of aggressive tumours that are caught.
And the trial on 576 men, published in the Lancet, showed more than a quarter could be spared invasive biopsies, which can lead to severe side-effects.
The NHS is already reviewing whether the scans can be introduced widely.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in British men, and yet testing for it is far from perfect.

jambalaya – Member 
When my Mum had an MRI she was told nothing apart from “resukts will be sent to the Doctor please make an appointment”

In my experience of numerous scans/x-rays from my (bike related) hospital trips, the stuff gets lost in the post. Ask the doctor at a later date and they deny all knowledge. Also, UK hospitals can’t send information to each other. One time, Merthyr hospital (yep, BPW 😀 ) did x-rays and stuck a cast on hand, but had to give me the documents and CD to take to my local hospital & doctor. They can’t do a referral there. Quickest way was (as they advised) go to A&E at local hospital. They said to see my GP for referral or I could wait 3 hours in A&E and get checked in like an A&E patient the they can refer to fracture clinic. Which I did.

that BBC article is good, and it sounds like a great bit of progress to reduce biopsy’s, which are unpleasant at the least. May also help to reduce the naysayer element of ‘intrusive investigation often for potentially little benefit’ (if you buy that line…)

I thought it was a pity the guy they spoke to is 70 yrs old, again reinforcing the ‘old mans disease’ concept, which really isn’t the case….