after getting radiotherapy everything still worked but with pain and no ejaculation but after starting up my exercises and stretching and lo and behold (which I always knew was at fault instead of cancer) at last I'm producing sperm, which was a pleasant surprise, and it proved my point about what was and is the problem in my case.
So has anyone got any idea about my point, being that if after many years (Cauda aquina being now diagnosed) but only after the Cancer treatment, then as someone who has lived and managed this syndrome over many years, then why was I diagnosed and treated for Prostate Cancer, when as far as I'm concerned it was this Cauda Aqina that may have caused the readings in my prostate test to be read differently if the doctors were told about the Cauda root issue,
I do wonder if anyone has any views on this, I find it embarrassing talking about these issues , but doing the exercises and stretching the spine has only further proved my point that loosing some weight and retraining the stomach muscles can produce wonders for the prostate, and methinks that we and the medical profession should look at ways of taking pressure of the prostate by reducing the girth, by exercising and dieting first , or at least give it a go before deciding on radiotherapy .
I know we are all different, but there is something in what I say best Alex
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Good on you, Alex. Each of us that has be "blessed" with this curse can take heart that it's not always a precursor of doom. Taking charge of one's own health is a vital component of achieving significant relief if not a cure altogether. We are, indeed, all different. Kudos on your improved health and function.
I don't know anything about cauda equina (a kind of spinal nerve compression.) I had to look it up. So I can't say anything about what symptoms you may have experienced from it. However, if your doctors were at all competent and diligent, they would not have diagnosed prostate cancer without having 1) a PSA test that indicated an abnormally high amount of prostate specific antigen in your blood, and/or 2) a digital rectal exam that found abnormal hard spots in your prostate and (most importantly) 3) a biopsy that found actual cancer in the prostate. There are guidelines giving the best current advice for PSA, DRE, and biopsy results for when a detected cancer should be treated and when it should merely be actively watched. If your condition met those guidelines, then your treatment would have been justifiable, at least by the current state of medical science.
From what you said, I'm guessing that you went to a doctor because of back pain. The doctor knew (quite rightly) that metastatic prostate cancer was a possible cause of back pain, and so had you tested for it. That would have been the responsible thing for him to do. It turned out that prostate cancer was not the cause of your back pain but, if it was an aggressive cancer, it would eventually have killed you and should have been treated to save your life.
This kind of thing is not unusual. I have a friend who was hurt in an auto accident. He was taken to a hospital where they scanned him for broken bones. I think they found a cracked rib, but they also spotted a mass in one of his kidneys that turned out to be a large tumor. The tumor was excised by surgery and today he's fine. If it hadn't been found when it was he would probably have died within a few years, before he even reached the age of 55.
Assuming you did have prostate cancer, it is a certainty that treating your cauda equina would not have cured it. It might very well have cured your back pain, but it wouldn't have done a thing for your cancer.
it appears to me that prostate cancer can cause cauda equina, but cauda equina cannot cause prostate cancer.
At any rate, it appears that the treatments for both cancer and spinal nerve compression have worked out for you and that your sexual functions are recovering. That's good news.
Yes but that doesn't explain why (being told you are going to be impotent ) all the advice about treatment leaving with sexual problems ejaculation etc and it did, but going back to my old regime of exercising and stretching has now allowed sperm to get through (which before it was blocked) I'm sorry maybe I'm not explaining it properly and there are things I do not want to say around the taking of the biopsy which is (I think) very relevant, I'm certainly no expert, but I'm sorry given my own experiences around wrongful diagnoses , and treatment at the hands of the doctors in the urology dept, I'm suspicious to say the least, thank you Alan.
It's very hard to know what causes what in complex medical conditions. Was it your exercise and stretching that enabled some ejaculate to appear? Maybe. I would think it couldn't hurt. Or maybe too there was some healing of the healthy tissue that was damaged by the radiation alongside the the cancerous tissue.
My own experience went the other way from yours. I was able to get erections and ejaculate something (pretty painful and bloody at the time) during my radiation treatment but, over about a five year period, I became more impotent. I'm told that there is radiation damage to the blood vessels that gets a little worse for some years after treatment.
I understand your suspicions about the doctors. There are doctors that seem to regard their job as performing treatments, not curing patients. Whether or not the patient gets better or suffers unusual side effects is not the doctor's concern. Most of the doctors I've met are not like that but I've met some that are.
If you want to pursue your suspicions you can ask the docs for a copy of your biopsy report and check it out, take it to another consultant, or even post it here on this group. What you'd be looking for are the following characteristics:
Gleason score - If it's above 3+3=6, then treatment was probably warranted, if it's above 7 it's considered high risk and should definitely be treated. Also, Gleason 4+3 = 7 is believed to be significantly higher risk than 3+4 = 7.
Number of samples with cancer - More than 2 is often considered as warranting treatment.
Percentage of tissue in the samples that have cancer - More than 5% may warrant treatment.
A PSA > 10 is also a bad indicator and > 20 is considered high risk.
If you had Gleason 6, no more than 2 biopsy samples with cancer, no more than 5% of cancer in each core, and a PSA < 10, then (in my far from expert opinion) you were very likely overtreated. If you were above that, then it's a judgment call. If you were far above it then treatment was definitely warranted. If you were a little above, then active surveillance might still have been a reasonable choice.
Age is also a factor. Prostate cancer can take a long time to kill you or make you sick, so older men who are likely to die of something else will often be recommended to avoid treatment.
Of course at this point the horse has already left the barn and its too late to close the door. You may just want to get on with your life and not bother with looking at the biopsy.
Thank you again Alan, I am now not overly concerned, but I've learnt much about Doctors and NHS Trust's and their stonewalling to last a lifetime, but I am now just going to concentrate on keeping healthy and walking, because sitting is now almost impossible due to problems from the Cauda root, and No I am still respectful of the work the good doctors do, it's once you question their diagnoses where you see a very different side of them, best wishes Alex
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