I agree with your comment on prostate removal means never having an unaided orgasm. In my case surgery+RT means 100% of the time ED meds are needed. And that it is very invasive is so true.
Barney
Do you mind me asking, what is life like WITH meds. Are you able to have a fairly normal sex life? Can you get a proper hard erection?
I do not mind you asking at all.
The situation depends on what treatment a person has:
surgery
radiation
androgen deprivation etc
Each treatment causes ED to some degree.
I had all three treatments, so have zero function without meds.
That said, the meds do work but what nobody tells patients is that after surgery the penis is much shorter and ejaculations are dry.
The real question is how worthwhile is sex given the above reality.
That said, if a man has 1 of the 3 treatments then his experience will be better than if he had to endure all 3 treatments.
One more thing:
the erections with meds look the same or better than pre treatment without meds BUT given the dry ejaculation and a smaller penis, sex does not feel anywhere like what it felt before the cancer treatment and so it is not a priority, at least for me.
Thanks.
Reduced size? Which procedure causes that?
PiersCV
Men that are looking into BPH procedure and Cancer have to do there research before they pick a procedure.
At 54 you have to decide if you can live without sex. Doctor do not care about your sex life they feel that a side effects are worth the procedure. You have to look into anything you can. Maybe a simple Prostatectomy would be better. They would go through the bladder and remove the prostate and this way none of the nerve bundles would be touched. There are many way it can be treated you just have to fined one that has the lease amount of side effects.
I’m 64 and for me I have been looking at many ways to get rid of prostate cancer if I every get it. And I for one will not do anything that will mess up my sex life or any of my function.
Good luck to you. Think before you do anything…Ken
Barney
Yes that is true. When they remove the prostate they have to attach the urethra to the bladder. You are going to lose 1 to 2 inch. Doctor do not tell you that because they do not feel you need to know. They tell you don’t worry all will be the same.
Most are just trying to get you to have the surgery and worry about things after.
Ken
PiersCV
That would be a ** RADICAL PROSTATECTOMY **
Surgery, because they remove some of the urethra when they remove the prostate.
Ken what you say is true BUT in the interest of FULL DISCLOSURE it would have been the right thing to tell me before surgery. Of course I would have had the surgery with that knowledge, but it is a real shock to discover this after in my case, the RARP (Robot Assisted Radical Prostatectomy).
Robot Assisted in my case.
There are plenty of options, each with its own likelihood of success. Do not focus on the side effects of treatment, focus I suggest on how successful a treatment can be. That way, if you need more treatments, you will need the least amount of treatments.
I’m sorry that they forgot to tell you that. Some doctors do not feel that it is important. I really am sorry. Before any surgery you should know everything that is going to happen
There are other surgery that do the same.
Doctor don’t tell you about penile shorting with a stricture surgery (Ureteroplasty ) This happen all the time. There was a guy on here a few years ago that had it happen to him. He had the surgery and the doctor was doing a end to end Ureteroplasty the doctor at the time told him that he will lose 1/2 to a inch he said okay but when the doctor did the surgery he told him that it was worse then he thought and took 3 inches. He has trouble have sex with his wife because it kept felling out.
The doctor have to start telling me everything when you have a surgery it not right to keep anything from the patient.
I hope things get better for you…Ken
Barney that is no more then right. This way you can deal with it.
Ken
I am currently looking into options that don’t involve RP.
Given that I am probably T3A with Gleason 7 and its a high volume tumour what are
my options?
Thanks for your feedback. On the plus side, at least I had incontinence for only 3 months, when many guys have it for up to a year and a good proportion have it for life.
When I had radiation they didn’t reveal that could make things worse. And it did!
I deal with it by knowing that “it could have been worse”. I could have more problems eg regular hot flashes for a long period of time etc
Sorry for that they should have told you but it done know and you just have to move on…
Be safe…Ken
You know, it bemuses me why consultants try to conceal things.
Mine told me that biopsy carries with it a VERY slight risk of blood in the urine. A VERY slight risk of blood in the semen and an almost non-existent risk of sepsis.
Clearly he thought I didn’t have access to Google.
Given that I had lots of blood in my urine, and semen and I was hospitalised for three days with sepsis it doesn’t make me massively trusting of him as regards surgery!
I disagree strongly here. Side effects can be horrible and make the life you save much less worth living. And the difference in the results between many of them is minuscule. Prostate removal is literally a percentage point or two better than radiation, with much more chance of permanent side effects and a long recovery that includes diapers, often for months - yet any urologist will call it the gold standard. And in a way it is - it guarantees that they get their share of gold.
If you are a candidate (you’re borderline from what I understand) for FLA, do that. Start by seeing an international radiologist. No permanent side effects and a quick recovery. If not, do radiation. Your 5 year outcome is virtually identical between the two - so do the seeds if you aren’t an FLA candidate.