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Dr. Bert Vorstman skeptical of any Pc treatment. What do you think?
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: 54 minutes ago | Replies (37)Comment receiving replies
1. I am an outlier.
2. I feel bound, however, to comment.
3. I know NOTHING about medicine.
4. I am now 88.
5. In 2010 a bit of prostate cancer appeared on some test.
6. I was offered watchful waiting or radiation.
7. I chose a month's radiation.
8. I then forgot about the matter after the radiation. My PSA was ok.
9. In about 2021, my primary care doctor told me my PSA was high.
10. I took a test. No cancer.
11. They then offered a super expensive test. If I failed to show up, I would have to pay for the test.
12. They discovered some cancer in my lymph nodes.
13. I was offered watchful waiting, hormone therapy, or radiation.
14. I --in 100% ignorance -- chose hormone therapy.
15. It was Lupron.
16. Being really stupid, I had no idea that lack of testosterone would -- in my case -- take away my muscle mass.
17. I stopped Lupron in 2022 (after only 2 shots).
18. This is 2026. My previous muscle mass still has not returned (probably because I am so old).
19. For three years, I have not dared to walk even around my neighborhood.
Replies to "1. I am an outlier. 2. I feel bound, however, to comment. 3. I know NOTHING..."
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@jimbo12 That sounds really tough. Once a patient is in their 80s, a lot of practitioners will recommend against more-extreme measures like ADT or radiation, on the assumption that quality of life matters more than quantity of life at that stage.
The problem is that there's an idea that the same applies to younger prostate-cancer patients, which it most certainly does not. When I was diagnosed with stage-4 prostate cancer at age 56, I'd had potentially decades of life ahead of me, and wanted to fight — HARD — to try to win them back.
The moral is that there's not just one situation called "prostate cancer", and people (even doctors) who go around making blanket statements like "Prostate cancer is slow developing" or "You're more likely to die with prostate cancer than of it" are conflating too many different things.
With the aggressive prostate cancer that strikes young (in your 40s, 50s, or early 60s) and spreads fast, you're *far* more likely to die of it than with it, unless you take drastic measures quickly. That's what killed famous people like Johnny Ramone (55), Frank Zappa (52), Dan Fogelberg (56), Bill Bixby (59), James Michael Tyler (59), Gary Cooper (60), and Jack Layton (61). It's only in the past few years that this type of cancer has become manageable after it metastasises, so instead of just palliative care, we have the option of new treatments that can (in many cases) keep us alive for years while treating advanced prostate cancer as a chronic disease.
But the aggressive treatment that made sense for me with fast-moving PCa at age 56 might not have made sense for you with slow-moving PCa around age 82–3. It's not as likely that you had the extra strength and health reserves to tolerate the side-effects of ADT or radiation the way I did in my 50s, and I'm so sorry that things worked out badly for you. It's also ridiculous that you have to live in a society that will make you pay for an expensive-but-essential medical test if it comes out negative, but that's a separate thread. 😠
My point is just that we need to be clear that we're not always talking about the same thing when we say "prostate cancer". That's why we need to ignore the quacks on YouTube — they oversimplify to get followers and likes, because that's how they make money or advance their careers. (I don't mean the legit researchers, like some of the Mayo practitioners, who aren't afraid to talk about the nuances and complexity.)