From buzzfeed.com
By Jeremy Hayes
September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. The rate of new cases of prostate cancer was 123.2 per 100,000 men per year, according to the National Cancer Institute. That's roughly 1 in 8 men in their lifetime will be diagnosed with prostate cancer (1 in 4 among Black men), making it the second most common cancer among men.
On the subreddit r/ProstateCancer, Reddit user u/bigzills asked: "What were some of your earliest signs that you had prostate cancer?" These were just some of the top answers:
1. "I had no major signs or symptoms other than a slightly elevated Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test. A family history of prostate cancer led to a biopsy, which found it."
2. "Painful ejaculation. It wasn't even a pain...I called it a twinge...right at the moment of ecstasy. It was super annoying, but I didn't make the connection until after I was diagnosed. I'm 3 years post-Robot-Assisted Laparoscopic Prostatectomy (RALP) now. Orgasms are different, but exceptional."
3. "I started seeing blood in my ejaculate, which happened after I had racked myself 2 days earlier. I went to the ER, and they checked PSA, which my primary care physician HAD NOT been checking (the doctor said there were too many false positives and they had changed protocols). It had elevated to 7.9, which led to a CT scan, plus additional PSA, MRI, biopsy, prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), and brachytherapy surgery (which was 2 months ago). My PSA will not be checked for another month; they say it is banged up from radiation for now. Lucky I sat on my balls!"
4. "I was going to go on testosterone, and I signed up with a woman from TikTok. They required a blood test. She wouldn't touch me without a urologist's clearance because of my PSA number. Long story short, a TikTok lady saved my life, as it would have been years, and we caught it super early."
5. "I'd always joked about having the bladder of a kitten since my early 20s. I had to take bathroom trips so often. Then, 2 years ago, I was on a camping trip, and the urgent need to go increased in frequency, but it came with a very weak stream and never feeling empty. I went to the urologist at age 45. They finally took me seriously after they found the size of my prostate AND that my father died in his mid-60s from prostate cancer."
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6. "I began having severe pain in my perineal area. Oddly, it happened every afternoon, and had me curled up in bed. When tested, my PSA was very low and has always stayed that way. Currently, it's 0.05. I've been on hormone treatment for the last six years, and I’m coping well so far."
7. "I was 49. My first indication of a problem was during a routine colonoscopy (my first). When I woke up, the doctor came to give me the results and said, 'Your colon looks great, but your prostate's a little enlarged. You might want to see a urologist.' When I saw the urologist, he sent me to the lab for a PSA screening. I received a phone call from him 4 hours later: 'I need you to come in for a biopsy next week. Anything over a 4 at your age, and we start to worry. Your PSA is 225.' The biopsy and subsequent scans diagnosed me."
8. "It started with a regular exam, and I was at a 5.27 PSA. The doctor said, 'It's not to worry, and it’s historically always been low, so let’s check in six months.' So I went back, and it was 13.27; the cancer was found partially outside the prostate capsule. A PET scan said there was no spread detected, but the PET can’t pick up microscopic cells — who knew? I had brachytherapy and 27 rounds of radiation to knock it out."
9. "I was suffering from erectile dysfunction (ED). Other than that, I had no symptoms."
10. "My husband had a strange texture to his semen. It was like Jell-O. He also started getting pain when he ejaculated, back pain, and pressure in his prostate."
11. "I am 43. I had virtually no symptoms. I woke up frequently in the middle of the night to pee — sometimes once, often two or three times. I don't know if it's related, but I quite often felt like I was right on the cusp of getting sick. Like, I was just having the VERY beginnings of a low-grade fever and feeling achy. Like the first stage that can easily be ignored but just barely registered as feeling off. Maybe I'm just nuts or reaching..."
Halfpoint Images / Getty Images
12. "Many times, prostate cancer isn’t symptomatic until it reaches more advanced disease stages. And since some symptoms overlap with other common signs of aging (erectile dysfunction, increased urinary frequency, difficulty starting/stopping urination, reduced ejaculate volume), many men don’t get checked out right away. I'm not a doctor, but in my opinion, any erectile, urinary, or ejaculatory changes should prompt a urology visit, especially if you’re younger than 60."
13. "Go see a urologist. If you are past a certain age, they'll do a PSA test. There are several causes of urination issues, and none of them is cancer — the 'symptoms' that some men report are just coincidental conditions that got them to go see a doctor when the cancer was found. A urologist would know and either tell you to 'get out of here' or order more tests."
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