Bah! Prostates (1 Viewer)

Ok, this may be off candor, but hey, it's after-hours.. I'm assuming other people have went through this same damn thing. I guess I just didn't expect it at 30 :frowning:

Felt awfully uncomfortable a few weeks ago and went to the ER and they immediately diagnosed a Urinary infection, and sent me home.. but before I left, made me go through all the STD testing (my wife & I have been married five years, so fairly doubtful)

They called me back the within the week and all the tests were negative. My initial test for bacteria (UTI) also negative. So I basically took Cipro for nothing :frowning:

Sent me to a Urologist and damnit, prostate problems. So, now I have to switch up my diet, etc. Now, I always knew my diet was on the negative side (I tend to drink about a 12 pack of cola a day) but I don't smoke, don't drink alcohol, etc.

I guess I'm glad we caught things early, but I always thought (and apparently wrongly) that these kind of problems were.. well, things that could hit me in my 40s/50s, not quite yet ;(

I'm sure others have gone through this, any thoughts? Diets you've tried? I was told to totally give up pop.. damn, that's going to be the hard one..

I work in research. (Urology)
This doesn't mean that I know everything about the prostate.
My advice:
Eat more tomatoes and get your PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) checked yearly. Hopefully you already had it checked. I have found that in the over 300 patient files that I have come across... High PSA values were a very good sign of a problem in the early stages.

A 12 pack of cola a day! I thought the 3 or 4 that I drink was pretty bad. Try switching to tomato juice!

Holy crap dude! It'll be hard, but I haven't had a soda in more than 7 weeks. Once you've gone w/o for a couple weeks, you no longer desire it. Good luck!

12 pack of cola? At that level of sugar intake, I'd have thought obesity might be a more immediate problem.

But prostate problems at 30? Ouch. About 20 years too soon.

As for tomato juice, my ex-boss was a big fan. We were in London on an arbitration case, it had just settled and the team went to a pub for a drink to celebrate/wind down. Most ordered pints of ale, my boss declined and wanted tomato juice, so the client ordered up literally a pint of tomato juice, which the barkeep duly poured into one of those long-necked pint glasses. Hilarious site, only matched by the second pint that came later in the evening.

*laugh* yeah, since I don't drink coffee or anything similar, it's my caffeine intake.. obesity, though, isn't a concern (i'm 5'9", 135lbs) doing network consulting, I'm that typical computer-y up all the time, so my shifts and places tended to run long during problems.. as it kept expanding, so did my intake. I adjust to say about 12 pack, because in fact, it's normally 6-8 20 oz bottles (7 * 20 = 140oz, 12*12=144oz)

I'm going to try the tomatoe juice. I can't believe I spent a week on Cipro to fix a problem that wasn't there though :frowning:

Yeah, the soda thing is easily the hardest. Right now, I've switched for the last week to lemonade.

So you may be only 135lbs, but I bet your mouth is full of cavities. I see dentures in your future at that rate.
FYI, one can of Mountain Dew contains 11 teaspoons of sugar.
If you could switch to diet soda, that would be an improvement.
If you haven't gone to the dentist in a while, be ready for a big surprise

I'm not a doctor on television, but I do play one in real life, so a word from an oncologist's point of view:

The beneficial effects of tomatoes on cancer, and prostate cancer in particular, are mainly from cooked tomatoes. The tomato juice may not help very much. You're better off eating more tomato sauce or stewed tomatoes.

Tom Fynan

...drink lots of water... forget soda and lemonade.

Glad I don't got one of them things!

Just kidding! I've got enough girly-type problems to make up for it.

But wowsers that's a lot of soda! Maybe try experimenting with other beverages, such as flavored teas and using splenda as a sweetener instead of sugar. If you can drink it unsweetened, even better. Green tea has some health benefits, too.

Take all that money you're spending on soda (like $3-4/day?) and put it in a jar. Then go out and treat yourself to some HT gear.

Why do tomatoes help with the prostate?

Jeff

Tomatoes get their red color from lycopene, a powerful caroteniod, and has very strong anti-oxident properties. Studies have shown that caroteniods prevent DNA from damage, thus reducing the change of cancer. For some reason lycopene works well to reduce DNA damange in the prostate.

I wonder what the cancer rate in Italy is?

You would be surprised how the diet of different cultures plays a significant role in Prostate cancer.

Chris, have you had your PSA checked lately?

Actually, just went (and no, no significant cavities, one rear molar, but the rest OK.. but I'm pretty religious about brushing and keep a SonicCare in my car even during the day)



I should add though, that's a bit of a "so what" several years ago, I got mugged.. 63 skull fractures (got beat with a baseball bat) so a lot of my teeth aren't "teeth" anymore, but replacements, and I have no idea what you'd have to do to make them go bad.. outside of my all my front teeth, which are the real deal

Yeah, my PSA scores were on the high side :frowning: Realistically, that's the only thing that called off the other witch hunt.. I've spent about $800 on STD testing just so doctors can stop suggesting it..

I spoke to a Urologist today, and he thinks it's probably attributable to some of the migraine medication I take, so we're seeing about that..

well, if it is your prostate, consider yourself lucky it's being looked at. i read (or heard somewhere) that a *lot* of deaths related to your (well...not specifcally *your*) prostate could have been prevented ... but men are just too squeamish to go.

speaking of...i gotta call my doc.

snap!

My uncle was recently treated for prostatitis, which he pretty much had to self-diagnose based on his own reading and research after none of his tests showed anything wrong but he kept suffering a lot of pain around the pelvic region and lower back. The doctors finally agreed with him, gave him a prescription, and he's feeling much better.


If guys would just relax, they'd find it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad experience. Some might actually enjoy it. :wink: Though perhaps that's what some are afraid of....

Who knows, the migraines may go away when you ease up on the sugar. They did for my wife, they did for my cousin, they did for my friend at work. Your body has got to be working double overtime and a half to keep up with that sugar load.

Seven 20oz sodas have the same amount of sugar as 18 -count 'em- Hershey bars. Could you imagine eating 18 Hershey bars in a day? I just checked it last month during a discussion we were having at work (slow times).

Next step- move from lemonade to water with lemon.

Good luck with your prostate.

Todd

I been taking "Saw Palmetto" herb for the past 2 years. I had 2 bouts of prostate infections 2 years ago and had not gotten any since.

"Saw palmetto dietary supplements are primarily used in the U.S. to improve urinary flow and reduce the frequency and urgency of urination in men with prostate enlargement (benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH). Saw palmetto is believed to inhibit the actions of testosterone on the prostate that cause prostate enlargement and interference with urinary flow. Saw palmetto has also been used to treat bladder inflammation (cystitis), chronic bronchitis, laryngitis, and asthma-associated nasal inflammation, among other conditions. "
wwwconsumerlabcom/results/sawpalmetto.asp

"Saw Palmetto May Help Battle Prostate Cancer
Extract from the Saw Palmetto berry, a commonly used herbal supplement taken by men with enlarged prostates, may also have anti-cancer properties, researchers announced at a meeting of The American Society for Cell Biology.
"Since we knew that saw palmetto berry extract (SPBE) had some effect on the prostate, we decided to take this a step further. We wanted to know if the saw palmetto had any effect on prostate cancer cells," said researchers at Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
The research team analyzed the effects of SPBE on cancer cells. To accomplish this, they exposed prostate cancer cells and a generic cancer cell line to various concentrations of berry extract. The cancer cell growth in laboratory cell cultures was then monitored.
About one-fifth the amount of berry extract was needed to decrease the cell growth of the prostate cancer cells compared to the amount needed to slow down the growth of the generic cancer cells.
Dr. Sahelian says: Men who take saw palmetto for enlarged prostates now can benefit even more by having a possibly lower risk in developing prostate cancer. "

135 lbs? I wish. 180+ lbs on 6ft doesn't sound like much, but us Asians have smaller frames and so I'm carrying quite a bit of excess baggage around the middle. I was about 140lbs back in college...

63 skull fractures from a baseball bat? Ouch. I hope you've fully recovered from all that (sounds like you have), and that they got the b*$t@rds who did that to you.

On the plus side (as if there's one), it sounds like you have indestructible teeth now

Yeah, a few years of on-and-off rehab, but came out the other end pretty well.. they caught the kids that did it that night.. one of them was a high schooler (he was the one that swung the bat) he had over 30 felony convictions before this trial, but they were all while he was a minor, so we couldn't use them in court ;(

He was sentenced to 5-7 years minimum security.. he got up on the stand and testified that he was "freaking out" as he was stabbing me (I got stabbed 4 times in the legs as well) but he didn't "know what else to do" blamed his father in law, blah blah blah.. escaped from prison after 5 years ;( (he ran off with a prison vehicle while setting up fireworks :frowning: )

Anyway, yeah, the teeth bit is a nice thing, though it was terrible at first.. here I went through all the orthodontics to end up with porcelain teeth *laugh* my front top & bottom are mostly real (front top not) and I've got 3 real molars.. the nice part about all of it (and bad, though) is that getting them was a terrible experience (bad part) good part: they seem to always be nice & shiny white