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Ken Riegel and Alison live in California, USA. At age 56 in October, 2015, he was not diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. Here is his story.

THERE WAS NO RESPONSE TO AN UPDATE REMINDER IN 2017 SO THERE IS NO UPDATE.

Back in 2009, my PSA was 4.84. One of my Brothers had recently had surgery to remove his prostate. Due to family history, my Urologist recommended a Biopsy. It came back negative. After learning a little more about PSA tests and Biopsies, I concluded that I might have jumped the gun on the Biopsy and maybe should have had a second or third PSA test before agreeing to the Biopsy. It kind of pissed me off and I didn't get another PSA test until December 2013 and it came back at 3.63 which was lower than the test in 2009. Again, I got a little too confident and didn't get tested again until October, 2015.

Shocked with the result coming in at a whopping 25.46. I visited my General Practitioner who I respect, trust and appreciate the way he practices medicine. He suggested I might have a prostate infection and made it clear, since a second one of my Brothers has had prostate cancer, I might also have cancer combined with the infection. He prescribed an antibiotic and referred me to an Urologist. During this conversation, he said if he had prostate cancer, he would consider having Proton Beam Theropy at Loma Linda and would shy away from surgery.

I met with the Urologist, had a DRE and he agreed there was a good possibility of my high reading being an infection. I had my PSA checked again in November and it decreased to 18.34. In December it dropped to 13.61. Last week, on January 19th it was down to 9.73. Since it was still high, I agreed to a Biopsy, which came back negative. I am very thankful that cancer has not been found, but also puzzled why the count is still very high. My Urologist told me to chill and come back in 4 months for another PSA test.

I am sharing this information for those of you who get shocked as I did with a high PSA count. When I received the results of my PSA test, I was scared and had trouble finding stories similar to mine during internet searches.

Over the past few months, I researched, read and read some more about the options for prostate cancer treatment. I assume I will one day get diagnosed with Prostate cancer and when that day comes, I will absolutely contact Loma Linda and see if I am eligible for Proton Beam Theropy. I know my Urologist won't recommend it, but I am convinced it is an excellent alternative to surgery.

Lesson Learned: I will absolutely get my PSA checked at a minimum once a year and probably more often to make sure I know of changes to my PSA count.

Ken's e-mail address is: kenriegel AT gmail.com (replace "AT" with "@")

NOTE: Ken has not updated his story for more than 15 months, so you may not receive any response from him.


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