Your original post to Wes seemed as if you were advising him to ignore his doctor's advice and not bother with a biopsy. It is good that you clarified this.
My personal experience is different from your family's. Lab results indicated that my PSA was going up quickly. As a result, I had a biopsy which was positive for prostate cancer. Exactly where it was located and what stage it was in. Because of early detection, I have been prostate cancer free (remission) for many years. My PSA continues to be undetectible. Had my doctor and I not been proactive, this story would not be so good.
Dude, happy for you... Sad reality is that only 1% of all diagnosed folks with prostate cancer ever develop a life-threatening (malignant and/or metastatic) form. That means that 99% of the remaining biopsied males were told they "MAY" have cancer. And this is when and where Wes' case comes into play because there's a very good chance these are going to be longest two weeks of his life (procedure + waiting for results,)
needlessly.
I'm sorry if I sound irritated but... this hits close to home because I've been through this SO MANY TIMES it pains me to hear of someone being told to get a biopsy. I'll give you a perfect example: my wife had a miscarriage at 20 weeks. Her breasts were getting ready for the baby so the milk ducts were starting to fire on all cylinders. Out comes the baby and the ducts solidify into calcium "strands". After the first post-miscarriage checkup, the doctor tells my wife that the calcifications may show in a mammogram so he didn't recommend getting one. Fast forward to last year, my wife gets a mammogram and, SURE ENOUGH, the doctor tells my wife that she needs to get an ultrasound. SURE enough, the ultrasound shows a calcification. She then is given the "abnormal finding" talk and told that the only way to get out of the conundrum is by getting a biopsy (which is bullshit). We go to Aruba and has the worst 6 days of her life. We come back, she gets the biopsy and SURE ENOUGH, it's freaking calcium. We go in for the talk with the doctor hoping for some closure and, SURE ENOUGH, we don't get it. Not only are we not told that it wasn't what he suspected (cancer,) we are told that the little strands of calcium can help "malignant cells to develop," which is bullshit.
My dad had a PSA test two years ago. My aunt, who is a nurse, diagnosed it as 100% hyperplasia but recommend he go get tested "just in case". Well, he got tested alright! They ended up removing a chunk of the "supposed" polyp, which made him pee blood for a month. In the end, the "polyp" was actually his prostate: They removed the sample so recklessly that it got infected. Once his results came back, the doctor told him "it's not cancer". Meanwhile my dad can't pee because it hurts, and the hyperplasia is so bad at this point that he can't even "push". Eventually we went to another doctor and he was able to isolate the hyperplasia in a day and a half. Although the conversation DID start with a "did you get a PSA test"?
Look, you're talking about a field that to this day insists steroids DO NOT help athletic performance. Aside from the little "islands of knowledge" in the forms of medical specialists, I have very little faith in the medical community. There are things they can look at prior to sending someone to get a biopsy. They can ask about the family history. They can monitor the polyp and the biological markers to see if there's any development or abnormality. There's things they can do before going the incisive route and scaring the living SHIT out of someone.
