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.

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.

20 units a week is a lot, OP! Fair play to you though.

Pretty much don’t drink in the week and try to keep it to a minimum at weekends; like others, it’s remarkable how much then you realise some people centre their lives around it. My Mrs said this a long time ago and she’s right.

What was momentarily annoying was that I’d been like this for a bit and then got seriously ill last year anyway, I then went through a phase of resenting heavy drinkers their health. But I recognise that that’s a very unfair and negative emotion, so given that up now, too!

Can I just say that this is the first time I’ve appeared on this thread?

Great day out it was too. The ruts started to get a bit wearing after a while, but superbly organised day and great trails indeed.

Just glad she’s ok.

Thanks midlife. Do you have one? It’s to go on a Solaris which has the cables slung under the top tube so presume it’ll be compatible?

Cheers!

Thanks again all. Am remarkably mobile already (aside from the collar) – went for a walk yesterday which helped loosen things. Every now and then there is a sickening crunch which then gives me nerve gyp down the right arm, but the headache is starting to pass off. Back to work Tuesday, no choice on that, I didn’t go in at all last week but worked from home (a few slightly weird concussion emails!).

Thanks for your experiences. It’s the not knowing that doesn’t help.

Best wishes to you Danny and everyone else who has been affected by this awful disease.

Thanks everyone. Almost wished I hadn’t posted seeing the above. Heal well, all of you and sorry to hear of your pain.

Mine was a bombhole argument last weekend at Black Park. Too keen to get back in the saddle after cancer treatment, bang in the first couple of minutes. Should have dropped in more gently I suppose.

As above, a&e were pretty useless, despite having walked in a day after the crash I ended up fully immobilised staring at the ceiling being bumped in a corridor for 12 hours. Got no sense out of the doctors who didn’t really deign to speak to me hence my question. Sent home with a bloody great collar, a headache and no information so I want to know what to expect.

Have now booked a private specialist as I don’t want long term problems, but he needs my scans and reports, which hospital now say could take weeks to obtain – aaaaaaarrrgghhhhhh!!

Cheers and best wishes to all.

Cheers Iain am more than hoping, so I asked the experts here!!

Ours swarms in in her huge Range Rover surrounded by hard men and shifty looking losers once every five years to collect her renewed mandate then disappears off again until the next election. I doubt she knows where the constituency actually is and certainly makes no pretence of representing it.

JFK here too.

Pretty much anything that the government denies by default as our politicians are all liars.

Can’t help with mental health stuff, but ongoing grinding slipped disc pain does get you down. I had one for 18 months, it was truly awful, I used to cry out in pain when the train went over points on my commute. Saw chiros, physios and consultant but disc was having none of it.

Obvious things such as lying on the floor for relief, what did it for me ultimately was getting active again – it was why I restarted biking. She absolutely must get as much movement going as possible without impact.

Of no help but I put it down to “that time of year”. The big single-glazed windows in our kitchen just flow with water now – I can wipe them (cue a lake forming) and in half an hour they’re soaked again. Coldest part of a fairly damp room etc etc. They don’t open. Upstairs Windows the same too.

Introduced with several others at Rome Airport. I shook her hand. At the end of the flight, I waited for her at the luggage carousel while she got her luggage – she has not forgotten that.

I’d just come through the latest disaster in my utterly catastrophic relationship career and had decided to stay single – pretty much that week. So I didn’t bother trying to impress or chat her up, just remained unusually aloof. We got on well and to my utter surprise and complete delight she pursued me over the following weeks. I think the only time that has ever happened to me.

My confused brain therefore concludes that if you want a happy relationship, do your utmost to stay single. Or something. How does that work?!

I can’t add to this really, except to say that I had a Vauxhall years ago that had an Isuzu engine – it was s***e, seized solid in 60,000 miles. Replacement wasn’t cheap or easy, either.

When I was still riding, I was noticeably faster on mine, so they’re not necessarily slow. Point was confirmed by my mate who now has it – he has broken all sorts of strava records without really trying.

“Like”
Starting a new topic with “so”

Well, my “anecdote” is all what happened. If you took that line on PSA testing then I probably wouldn’t be around much longer, that is hard to deny and it makes me understandably angry when the medical profession dismisses it. Agreed that the conventional biopsy can miss – my first one came back almost clean, just one area of mild cancer. I demanded a second opinion which came back with sufficient evidence to undergo an almost immediate prostatectomy. So I argue that the PSA testing is less the issue, it’s the biopsy.

Fundamentally, if my gp had followed conventional thinking and not tested and then retested PSA in my mid 40’s, it would have been undetected. It’s me that lives with that.

Sorry pig face went off on my rant slightly. Will drop you am email through your website if you need advice etc too.

Cheers

Ok this thread has finally pushed me to “come out of the closet” on stw, so to speak. I had intended to keep it quiet.

Diagnosed with it in early summer this year, diagnosis came about solely due to elevated PSA (taken by chance for routine blood test for something completely unconnected (thanks doc)). I had no symptoms whatsoever and it’s not in the family. Prostate fully removed by robot in early September, cancer had broken out and consultant told me I was out of time before far more serious issues. Hopefully he has caught it all, now on regular PSA checks to confirm. Back on bike imminently. Next year planning a big ride to prove to others it can be done and raise funds for prostate cancer charity.

Stoatsbrother, I am no doctor but I have to take issue with your comment about PSA being not usefulwithout symptoms. I had none and it quite likely saved my life. I am therefore a strong advocate for the PSA test and can’t accept it has little place. Yes the biopsy is unpleasant but set that against detecting this monster.

Ok I’ve said it now. There are some incredibly kind, helpful selfless people on here who really got me through all this. Cheers, iainc.

I am definitely much quicker on my fattie – the all-important scientific test of riding with my mate proved it, for once he almost couldn’t keep up. Further proven as I have had to give it to him for a while as I am off the bike and he has broken a number of his strava times on it. People only think they’re slow.

My experience is that the more it goes the more susceptible it is to it, I’m afraid. It finds the weak spot. Good luck, I’ve only ever dealt with them by waiting.

Just do it.

I’m usually able bodied but just had surgery. Where can I sit next week?

There are two things that I would guide my working life with if I had my time again aside from any moral compunctions: 1. Has it got a good and secure pension and 2. Is the job portable? To me these are the keys in any career, and I wish I’d thought of them when I was a kid.

Train driver I suspect (but don’t know) ticks them both, if so stick with it.

P-Jay – it was slightly different but my ex-Mrs said something vaguely similar. I would never trust the gold mining old soak not to reappear and try something else on, which is why anything like this is truly scary to me. For the record, I didn’t lie, but she would be capable of twisting anything around to make it seem like I did.

I’m not bitter though, oh no.

Are Graham S’s videos on the first page actually, really genuine?! If so, for the first time in my life and quite probably the last, I almost feel intelligent. Unbelievable!

Take That comeback concerts or Aqua in their prime for me.

Mr O – impressive shed (but far too tidy ffor me, you run the risk of being able to find things in there)!

Nice.

Had you been sick in the first pic or just wet yourself in excitement?

Retro83 – as above, just off Bishopsgate in London – http://www.cyclebeat.co.uk

Muppetwrangler – cycle beat http://www.cyclebeat.co.uk – it’s in London, very close to my office. A really good bunch of people, most of them are real cyclists, great atmosphere.

The class I go to is good (well, used to go to) as it has a beat board – all the bikes are wired into it and it shows power output at any moment and then ranks everyone according to total energy for the class. Leads to some proper hard psychological battles and made a big difference to me. Also get an email afterwards with stats and a graph of your last 20 classes. I could really see my improvement.

Strava – pah!

I do wonder if I’d actually give up work, but I think the lure of actually having some time would get me.

In that case, I can’t put it any better than franksinatra, two above.

Do all you drivers spend your whole time shouting and screaming at each other? That’s why there are so many people knocked off bikes I suppose. So many of these stories are about driving, it’s quite sad.

About 215 out of 10 here. The best summer I can remember, fitness was building and then – a bad diagnosis, surgery, and off the bike for months. Still, just happy to still be here I suppose. Feeling frustrated is really a “nice to have”.

Thanks epicyclo. The main reason I would consider carbon rims is indeed to go tubeless (and avoid a lot of punctures).

I assume no cracking issues? What do you run?

Used to. Left them owing to their utter uselessness when we had line problems. The call centre is excruciating and essentially they charge a fortune on it to just blame BT. That’s after they call your mobile after three weeks and ask you to do things to the modem there and then. A bit tricky when at work!