"free" screening risks, prostate

[AccuTron]

I just had three weeks of mental anguish.  Fortunately I kept searching the internet, when Kaiser Permanente had a near total info blackout, in both directions, not telling and not listening.  A real con job in retrospect.  

 

I didn't realize where I'd end up, and am very glad I stayed on it.  Here are two links with the "punchlines" and if you are male, or have male friends or family, PLEASE read these.  It will take five minutes, and the value is enormous.  

 

The first is some quotes, including the discover of PSA referring to today's practice as "profit driven public health disaster…."

imgur: the simple image sharer

 

The second is a cancer.gov info graphic, showing that huge risk and injury (physical, mental, financial) results in virtually zero reward:  Infographic: Benefits and Harms of PSA Screening for Prostate Cancer - National Cancer Institute

[Pepin]

I'm not quite sure I understand the thread. Can you give some context?

[AccuTron]

Will do.  I was so angry and exhausted I sort of rushed thru it, tho' even knowing nothing of my case, the two links speak for themselves.  Did you look at them yet?  Here's the full story, it's long on detail, but PLEASE be on guard for yourselves and learn by it.

 

 

I grew up in a respectable medical family, and had no attitude, until recent years when twice I have been treated like a billable piece of crap, when admitted with severe distress, once ICU and once ER (results of a clear malpractice injury completely unrecognized; now I AM getting an attitude).  

 

I think if I'd worn a Rolex, the personal treatment would've been better, but not the results.  I am appalled at modern medicine, ruled by profits and attorneys, and nobody is allowed to think, or do what's best.  Only what won't ruffle the feathers on somebody's software.  I am disgusted but there's surely plenty already on the net about that.  A long time nurse friend is also of this opinion.

 

 

As I now see the huge con job here, I mention another point which had caught my attention.  I learned early that tobacco is a no-no.  I smoke pot almost daily, and mentioned that in the exam.  My mailed report says SMOKER: DAILY.  Curious, I measured, and my average is about 1-1/3 THIMBLES-full per day.  For data analysis, I'm lumped together with somebody who does a pack of Camels.  Hardly good science.  But great for recommending some expensive tests some day.

 

 

I am 63 and in very good health, often taken as forties.  Body scans have shown normal systems and zero defects, virtually insurance claim-free.  I was with Kaiser because before ACA, due to age alone, my premiums skyrocketed.  I never bothered with the "free" annual exams until December 2014, when I went in mostly to have a couple of minor but annoying skin matters addressed.

 

No digital rectal exam (DRE) was done.  I now understand that the medical profession as a whole is seeing DRE's and PSA tests as so unreliable as to recommend avoiding them.  At the very end of a boring quick exam, which is a good thing up to that point, I was asked if I'd like a PSA test, since my blood was still on hand.  I now wonder if that question was an onscreen prompt for the doc.  

 

(My "oh-my-glycerides" and "cruel-esterol" numbers were high, like always, but they don't worry about it as much now…like I'd been saying for years, with clean pliable arteries and a strong heart.)

 

I said yes, and the result was markedly higher than one taken 3 years earlier elsewhere.  (I have also learned that PSA numbers will vary somewhat over short times anyway, and vary by lab some.  They are not fixed numbers.)  

 

This made me worry about getting that DRE, in my innocence, and I ended up calling Urology, with some Kaiser doc email coaxing me along the way.  I ONLY wanted a DRE, by presumably a more experienced fingertip, which I now realize is halfway bogus, as to what actually can be felt.  I turned out to be boringly unremarkable, again a good thing.  

 

HOWEVER, before we got to that, I was given a bladder scan…five seconds to do the whole thing...to find out how much I'd retained in giving a urine sample.  I had NO warning of this, no instruction to fully empty…it was a cold weather wave, a cold restroom, and I just wanted out of there quickly, so I didn't…and had to figure out on my own what was actually going on.  And getting hit $40 for it later, again no notice of that either.  I have no retention problems, it was completely unneeded, and they didn't even ask or tell me it was going to happen.

 

I never saw a urologist, and now I'm glad.  The Physician's Assistant during the visit told me…close to exact words as I recall…"the biopsy is low risk," and "it may metastasize into bone cancer."  So we have the "oh don't fear us" and "oh maximum fear of not doing what we say."  That was the sum total of discussion.  

 

I also tried to speak of a unique bench I made for online gaming, and I kneel, because it's great for leg joints.  But I also sit sometimes, and even more when I start surfing right after gaming, too lazy to grab a chair, assuming overall bad posture, and the unique layers of my bench construction, great for bones, absolutely mash into my "saddle area" completely unlike any furniture, futon, carpet, or even bike seat.  Two years old, and previous PSA was three years, so it seems like at least a topic for discussion.  I got ZERO recognition that I'd even tried to speak.  

 

I was automatically set up for a biopsy.  Mixing my time frames here, it took three calls with a scheduling person to reveal that another driver is recommended to transport the patient (victim), not because of merely a local anesthetic, but because my body would be (my summarizing words) reeling from the physical assault.  

 

At various times over three weeks, to try to get ANY information, I got on our beloved internet, and researched one or two starting points, for one or two hours.  I've put a total of 6-9 hours intense research on this topic.  

 

I had the links above probably in the first two hours, but had bookmarked them without reading, and only got to them at the end of those other hours.  It's all you need.  And all those other hours reveal that it's very messy information, lots of hems and haws and interpretations, and it's a God-send to have those quotes and images above to take us exactly to our needed destination.

 

I talked on the phone with the P.A. only after a good bit of squawking elsewhere about not being heard.  At that time, I didn't know I had these important links, so couldn't mention them.  

 

I see now that Kaiser has plentiful parking, lovely buildings, employees happier to see you than even Disney, and we are sure we are with Big Momma And Dadda who will take care of us.  Slick.

 

How much for a biopsy?  Wasn't mentioned.  But I called Financial, and it would be $700+, for two cores.  But on that phone call, the PA said 12 cores, six lobes on a side of prostate gland.  So maybe it's two thousand.

 

After I figured out what was really going on, I cancelled the appointments.  I was to see a urologist after the biopsy, which would be my first contact, no discussion.

 

"Low risk" actually means 1-3% chance of serious complications including hospitalization, and almost certainly a few days of possible pain, bleeding, and no doubt mental anguish.  None of this was verbally mentioned.  The preparation instructions printout mentions the bleeding and pain part.  

 

 

It was made VERY clear to me, the mental state alone, the fear I described as "wearing a concentration camp" would grind any man's health down, even if it was just a banged toe causing it.  They would punch 12 holes into an otherwise quite silent organ, introducing sperm and fecal bacteria into my bloodstream.  That last one is so deadly, a major cause of battlefield death, that I'd be given a double dose of an antibiotic so powerful that long term use can cause tendon damage.

 

None of this mentioned.

 

 

To recap:  I was being totally sucked in on horrendous science.  It is of primary importance to fully inform a man (see those links), and yet I was given almost zero information, and it was misleading.  I was scheduled without discussion.  I was going into a major unknown debt, lined up probably for yet more.  I would be injured, perhaps seriously.  And maybe told to come back for worse.  And if I didn't get on the net for hours and hours, BECAUSE I DIDN'T TRUST THEM, it would have happened.

 

So, for you men to avoid all that hell in merely a few minutes, look at the links.

 

And spread them around.

[AccuTron]

I also found this:

 

 

 

[DarkJello]

Very sobering statistics on PSA testing and prostate CA. Follow the lucre.

[J. D. Stembal]

(My "oh-my-glycerides" and "cruel-esterol" numbers were high, like always, but they don't worry about it as much now…like I'd been saying for years, with clean pliable arteries and a strong heart.)

 

This is a bit off-topic, but why aren't the doctors scrutinizing your blood numbers? The triglyceride/HDL ratio is the most effective predictor for heart disease (and a good indicator of the other disorders of metabolic syndrome) that exists in current medical science.

 

Thanks for the information about prostate screenings. I've had the finger treatment before, and I can't imagine many more humiliating tests that you could perform on a man in the name of medicine.

[AccuTron]

This is a bit off-topic, but why aren't the doctors scrutinizing your blood numbers? The triglyceride/HDL ratio is the most effective predictor for heart disease (and a good indicator of the other disorders of metabolic syndrome) that exists in current medical science.

 

Thanks for the information about prostate screenings. I've had the finger treatment before, and I can't imagine many more humiliating tests that you could perform on a man in the name of medicine.

 

It's not off topic if the topic is medical outright scam, or just sloppy science; we are victimized either way.

 

You're right about how demeaning it is.  The whole process was treating me like a hog to slaughter.  Grrrr.

 

 

I'd like to thank all viewers for reading all of this, and I hope you send the link here to many friends and relatives; this prostate screening is truly dangerous.

 

 

Now as to the blood numbers, which I'll call BN.  Often we find that original medical conclusions take on a life of their own, and the original science may have been untidy, or just because it was original there were unknown factors.  Also, it takes time for studies to mature.  I suspect this is happening with BN.

 

I rarely had physicals until the eighties.  I'm from a competent and honest medical family, so I know the medical sciences in fair detail, and where the caveats and uncertainties might be.  I am very healthy because when in my twenties, with the help of an M.D. father, I tried to gather a group of good habits, of diet and exercise, wise and in moderation.  

 

Decades later, this is clearly seen as the right way to go.  The goals of such habits have been achieved and maintained.  I was lucky to bicycle commute all seasons for over twenty years, so my cardiopulmonary has always been excellent.  Again, good workouts, but in moderation, no self-destruct types of exercise.

 

In long ago stress periods, I might go from being fairly trim, to carrying too much fat, and knew the joys of Haazen-Daaz for months at a time.  A decade ago, I shed about 25 pounds, and kept it off.  Recently I was with "pants size pudge" and easily shed most of it by simply eliminating a few obviously junky or carb foods.  

 

Due to circumstances, my recent exercise actually diminished as my fat did, doing only home and snow types of chores.  I mention this because elsewhere in the forums is a long talk about carbs and gaining fat and my experience exactly meshes: it's not about the calories burned, it's about not introducing those high fructose or carb foods at all.   ▶ Sugar: The Bitter Truth - YouTube

 

 

What annoyed me, as I had a few physicals thru the eighties/nineties, was that I was always in good health, but these magic numbers were saying I was supposed to take drugs.  My GP at the time was not a pushy type, just gently asked, but it was the lab printouts making the condemnation.  I hate the idea of mental imprisonment of taking a drug to not die, with the money and endless treadmill of that.  For a printout???

 

Back in 2008, turning a certain age, I had a chest MRI.  (Which left me disoriented, brains don't like being near that stuff.)  It's a three test scan:  lesions, calcium buildup, and some score with a name like Agatson.  Zeros are what you want, and I had a perfect total of zero.

 

I have PLENTY of sustained exertion experience, biking or shoveling heavy snow (bent handle only!) for example, and I'm clearly in great health.  The MRI shows perfection.  And yet somehow these BN tell me I'm cursed???

 

(We also don't know if I have lucky genetics, but even that is part of the statistical pool.)

 

I was also disturbed by how it was reported.  It was 1.5X or 2X, something like that, where X was a supposed normalized risk, whatever that meant.  But what value is X???  On a class test or legal contract, that would be an incomplete answer or fraud.  It reads like the label on quack supplements!

 

A few years ago, I searched for X.  It was blasted difficult to find an answer that was not a tangle of factors.  I finally stumbled upon a graph, which I didn't save.  It showed a family of three curves, stretching over the decades of a human life span.  Each curve was a BN reading of some sort.  The vertical scale showed a percentage likelihood of I think general heart disease.  

 

Most of all three curves were in the low single digits.  Only when the worst BN curve hit the age sixties did it climb to maybe ten percent, and the other curves were still maybe 5-6%.  Mind you, 10% may still be a problem, but I'm guessing that would be for the obviously unhealthy anyway.  (Doing this from memory, bear with me on a bit of fuzziness.)  So we're supposed to freak out because 3% becomes 4.5%?  Sorry, that's a poor excuse for taking heavy drugs, at heavy expense, and wearing a heavy heart and sense of doom, all of which are known to be hell on health.

 

The recent Kaiser doc said, when I asked about my BN, something like "we don't worry about that as much any more."  No further comments.

 

I'll upload my BN so you can see what they are.  At the blood sample time I was still carrying that extra weight (few pounds?), and my dietary change hadn't yet occurred.

 

 

I agree with you about the best current medical indicators.  But what is best, compared to what?  (And the good doc in that carbs link above said the same thing about a particular BN ratio being a risk indicator, and even gave the chemical pathways of why).  

 

Yet, if a few percent of people are at risk, what about the other ninety something percent?  Can anyone find other graphs showing the stats?  New York City might be the most likely US city to get a terrorist bomb.  Bagdad may be the most likely Iraqi city to have one.  Do we confuse the two?  My calculated blood results say I'm in Bagdad, but every other datum says NYC.

 

Whatever the rest of the world is thinking, this individual knows that he's in excellent health, and to ignore those BN. 

[J. D. Stembal]

Whatever the rest of the world is thinking, this individual knows that he's in excellent health, and to ignore those BN. 

 

What reasons did the doctor give for dismissing the test results?

 

These ideas may be heretical to some in medicine, but blood cholesterol numbers (and blood sugar) are still very significant as a future predictor of cardiovascular health. Steve Phinney and Jeff Voleck initially turned me on to this metric in the book, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living.

 

Here's a blog that I only just skimmed that explains the TG/HDL ratio decently enough. http://primaldocs.com/opinion/the-triglyceride-hdl-ratio/

 

 

 

The Triglyceride/HDL-C  ratio. What is ideal?

The TG/HDL-C ratio can easily be calculated from the standard lipid profile. Just divide your TG by your HDL-C. However, when looking at the ideal ratio you have to check if your lipid values are provided in mg/dl like in the US or in mmol/L like in Canada and most European countries. If lipid values are expressed as mg/dl (like in the US);

• TG/HDL-C ratio less than 2 is ideal
• TG/HDL-C ratio above 4 is too high
• TG/HDL-C ratio above 6 is much too high

Your ratio was 6.08 at the time the last test. I would be a little worried over the doctor's lack of concern. I'm glad to hear that you've made some changes, and lost weight. I hope you that continue feeling strong and healthy!

 

I've been worried about my dad's health for nearly two decades. I couldn't list all the different cardiovascular procedures that he has had. I fear he's going to need a pacemaker, eventually. You can see why these are personal issues for me.

[AccuTron]

Thanks for the concern, the links, and doing my ratio math for me!

 

Sorry to hear about your Dad's problem; that sort of thing DOES turn up our radars for dangers.

 

The Kaiser doc said nothing more, just one brief sentence dismissing the numbers.  Given it's Kaiser, that is striking for it's lack of attempt at follow up testing and it's cash flow.  As to anything else he was thinking, it's pure guess.  I also notice that my online BN report didn't include any ratios.  You'd think that would be big on the list of things to display.

 

 

Over my lifetime, I've had random events suggest that I metabolize differently than others.  Things would take longer to kick in with me, or passing diseases wouldn't hit as hard (tho' not all!), and I ended up in an ICU with what (should never have happened in the first place) is considered a standard high dose of lorazepam.  I came very close to being vegetative or dead, and took serious damage (which the ICU staff never checked or noticed, and they weren't even busy).  Based on my experience, people should be dying daily from bone marrows and bronchoscopes and a range of other painful procedures.  But they don't.  Why am I different?   

 

 

The link you provided about those numbers is welcome and informative.  I notice they use words like correlate and often associated with.  That is one of the points made in the sugar video, that early big mistakes were made by mixing correlation and causation.  (I grant that the earlier things were just clunky bad science, and these other concerns are much tidier.)  Elsewhere in the link there are studies saying something has a correlation of about 80% with something else.  What about the other 20%?  One-fifth is a big chunk of population.

 

In the sugar video link, I learned that the main danger is small lipo-stuff getting under epithelial cells, and that is associated with certain numbers or ratios.  I'm sure that this is rich research territory and shouldn't be dismissed.  But it's incomplete, and still just correlation to some extent.

 

By the way, I looked at the video again paying more attention to detail, and it reinforced what my body has been gradually learning over the last year:  I don't like ANY gratuitous sugar or junky food.  My few dietary sins continue to reduce.  I'd be curious to see my numbers for next year's free exam.