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[Davepet]

Not sure of your age, Scotty, but I have 5 bulging discs in my lower back, that cause not only lower back pain, but pinch my left sciatic nerve causing pain from my waist to my ankle if i stand or walk too long. It sucks, but not cancer related.

Dave

[Davepet]

Why are you afraid to go to a doc? The odds are good that this is nothing other than headaches & a doc might relieve your worry. If It *IS* a serious problem, the sooner it is discovered the better the odds of a cure. Fear of the unknown is worse than knowing what is going on & dealing with...

[Davepet]

Nothing is definite with cancer, but shrinkage is a positive sign, I think this needs more frequent scans going forward to keep an eye on it.JMHO.
Dave...

[Davepet]

Sorry, got him mixed up with Violet's husband.

[Davepet]

cc,
No I have not. One every 3 weeks has been working well enough so far & I find it convenient. Also there is only 1ml in the bottle, so even splitting that in half accurately seems difficult to me.

[Davepet]

Violet,
Glad you heard from doc E, I would follow his advise, he knows how to treat TC better than anyone.

[Davepet]

Amy,
Technically, this is a relapse, but no matter what it's called it's the treatment going forward that is what is important, & that does not change.

[Davepet]

Afraid I can't be very helpful. The cure rate statistics are so overwhelmingly positive that I never doubted I was cured after my first post treatment scan....Sorry I can't help.

[Davepet]

It only takes one node (that's what got me having chemo), & that one is pretty large too. RPLND surgery might also be an option, opinions vary as to the best course of treatment. You might want to email Doc E to get his take on this case.Nobody on this earth knows more about TC & it's treatment....

[Davepet]

Don't wait till next week to start trt if you can avoid it, hot flashes are common & very uncomfortable, believe me.

I have been on Testim, androgel 1% , androgel 1.62% & generic testosterone gel 1%. I had decent results with all, but with the generic gel i actually got numbers...

[Davepet]

Bummer Violet, how large is the node & where exactly is it located?

[Davepet]

Well, afraid it is entirely possible to have a recurrence without raised markers, even though they were high with the initial cancer. Markers are useful if elevated or dropping,but not as useful if normal. I'd want to know the actual size of the nodes & their location. It would be very odd for seminoma...

[Davepet]

As far as I know, there is no one method better than any other, some work better & some worse than others for every guy out there.Even that isn't cast in stone, I felt the topicals worked better, but find the convenience of an injection once every three weeks a good trade off. Eeryone is different....

[Davepet]

There are two big problems with testosterone: The biggest one is that the "normal" levels cover every guy from puberty to 70's. Unless your guy is in his 60's or older, 355 is NOT "normal", it is very low. The other big problem is that thanks to misuse by athletes, testosterone is...

[Davepet]

I am curious about why they did a biopsy if your CT scans showed clear enough to Dx at stage 1?

[Davepet]

I have never heard of that before....

[Davepet]

Yes, plan on losing the hair, most likely during week 3 if I recall correctly. Two rounds of EP should be easier than 3xBEP, but mostly because it will be over sooner, I think.

Dave

[Davepet]

Keep in mind that back pain is probably the most common complaint of humans everywhere., so I wouldn't worry. Also, pretty sure a tumor large enough to cause pain would show up on an x-ray.
Dave

[Davepet]

I believe that they delay treatment when the counts go low when treating other types of cancers, they should not do so for TC.

[Davepet]

First off, it is rare for them to test for testosterone automatically, especially with only 1x,so he'll probably have to request it.

Also, it is pretty rare to get 2x,but the odds are increased somewhat after a 1x. It does seem to me that we are seeing more than we used to.

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