dave weil wrote:

On Fri, 27 May 2005 17:16:38 -0400, in rec.audio.opinion you wrote:

I have had three of them. No big deal, as you stated,
although the discomfort has been different with each. Mostly
like gas cramps.

I had absolutely nothing like that. The hardest part was the liquid
diet for the prior 2 days and the session with the Go-lightly the day
before, although it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Yeah, the Go-Litely is the worst part. Yuk. Now they have
something called Nu-Litely, and basically that is flavored
Go-Litely. Still yuk.

Actually, for my first session (over 15 years ago) there was
little discomfort, other than some gas pressure at times. (A
word to the doctor and he would back off the pressure or
ramp up the anti-spasm medication being fed into the arm.)
They need to build up that pressure somewhat, so that the
colon expands enough for them to examine with the camera
probe. The second session was more uncomfortable, possibly
because I was older. The third had some serious discomfort
at times. Still, it was preferable to getting a dental
crown.

I know of people who had problems to the extent with their
first session that they opted to be anesthetized completely
for the next one. They said it hurt like hell. My take on
this is that going completely under is risky, because one
way you can tell the doctor that he is generating too much
potentially damaging pressure is to be awake when the test
is taking place. You are his best damage-prevention tool.

Congrats on the PSA score.

Thanks. I don't even know what I scored, but apparently it was cool.

Find out. Sometimes the info slips into a folder and is not
acted upon. Mistakes happen. Once you have the score, check
some of the prostate-cancer web sites to see if your score
means anything.

Mine was 4.3, and at that time anything above 4 should have
resulted in a trip to a urologist for an expert "digital"
exam (they do a better job of the finger work than your
typical GP) and possibly a biopsy. That is exactly what
happened in my case. Note that my PSA number was borderline
(some readings go as high as 20, or even considerably
higher), and yet the biopsy showed me to have a Gleason
reading that put me into the middle of the cancer-is-there
pack and not in serious trouble. Note also that a high PSA
score does not mean you have cancer. It only means that you
need to get some followup checking done.

Any PSA score above 1 should require retesting at frequent
intervals, by the way. Note that my last test resulted in a
reading of .001 (the residual lower limit of the test
system), which is what it should be after surgery or
radiation.

With prostate cancer, there are a number of treatment
options, with surgery and radiation being the two given to
me. Another is watchful waiting, to see if the PSA and
Gleason numbers go upward, but that is really risky business
in my opinion. Nip the disease in the bud.

I opted for surgery, simply because it has a longer cure
record than radiation, and surgery also allows for biopsies
to be performed on the lymph nodes. (Mine were clean.) Also,
if radiation fails you cannot then opt for surgery, with
chemotherapy being the only other choice. The gland is too
disfigured to extract. However, if surgery fails you can
then opt for both radiation and chemotherapy.

Well, hopefully you are clean and the above discussion is
all academic.

Howard Ferstler