A 90 yo man came to me once complaining about depression and no energy. His HMO (Kaiser) had put him on Lupron and he had ZERO testosterone. I asked him what the biopsy results showed. Biopsy?
What Biopsy... they had never done one... they actually didn't know if he had prostate cancer. They gave him Lupron based on his PSA (I can only as…
A 90 yo man came to me once complaining about depression and no energy. His HMO (Kaiser) had put him on Lupron and he had ZERO testosterone. I asked him what the biopsy results showed. Biopsy?
What Biopsy... they had never done one... they actually didn't know if he had prostate cancer. They gave him Lupron based on his PSA (I can only assume). I told him I would be depressed and fatigued if I were 90 and had no Testosterone. Being treated for a disease with Lupron that was never confirmed.
Prostate cancer is slow growing. You don't do anything stupid to a 90 yo man and destroy his quality of life...
Be that as it may, that is the state of conventional medicine.
I know of a case like this. PSA results showed prostate cancer, ergo Lupron. When he died, there was an autopsy. No evidence of prostate cancer. None. Go figure. Quality of life in the last couple of years was awful, joint pain and brain fog.
I think a lot of people have the idea that "catch cancer early" is step one, and then, step 2, go after it with orthodox treatments recommended by recommended doctors as aggressively as possible. That makes sense, assuming (a) "early caught" cancer is always going to develop into something that could ruin your life and then kill you, and (b) that orthodox treatments are provided by doctors who are fully informed, that (c) the clinical studies behind those tests and treatments were truly good in all respects, and that (d) the incentives for all concerned are such that the patient's well-being is foremost. But all that just ain't so.
So what to do? That's another question. But in this particular case I mentioned, I think anything would have been better than the suffering this person endured from his various orthodox treatments for his supposed prostate cancer. He died, by the way, of a completely different cancer.
Ruth H— I agree it does appear to have been sad and senseless. My view is that the patient would have been much better off to have done nothing since he had no symptoms, just a test result, and based on that blood test result he endured a whole barrage of treatments, including hormonal treatments, over many years. The saddest thing is, in this particular case, with which I am quite familiar, I think the doctor really did care, and the doctor honestly thought he was doing the right thing by his patient. And knowing the patient as I did, I think he would have insisted on some treatment, and preferably an aggressive treatment, no matter what.
There is incompetence out there, yes, and there are many doctors who don't give a dang about other people, yes, but for so many people the these widely accepted paradigms are extremely tough to question. So they don't. And this is what it looks like. Very ugly.
My dad when thru this 15 years ago. After the Lupron hormone therapy he went thru manopause. Horrible. If I were the wiser back then I would have pointed him in a different direction. Oncology needs a total reset.
My dad was put on statins in the early 2000s, when he was in his 70s. I vociferously argued that he should not take them, because I had found research back then that they were dangerous and unnecessary.
His doctor (he loved doctors) actually responded by taking him off that statin and, unbeknownst to me, replaced it with a different one.
I didn’t find out until many years, and a significant mental decline, later. He also broke his ankle due to ‘osteoporosis’ in his 70s.
I recall now he had been discussing his PSA and an enlarged prostate, years before that, but I didn’t even know that something like Lupron was prescribed for that.
I did think it was odd that a man who had spent his entire life running, hiking, lifting weights and playing tennis would end up with a broken ankle, due to osteoporosis, even at that age. His legs had always looked like tree trunks to me as a kid.
He regularly went to that abattoir, the Mayo Clinic, where he got MRSA during a rotator cuff surgery. He had to spend a month there on IV antibiotics. They also put him on Warfarin, in addition to the statins, but also only found out much later. Because of the osteoporosis, I have to suspect that he was also likely on this Lupron. He also developed low energy and depression at this time.
He died of a complication from Warfarin mismanagement. While trying to advocate for him, I had tried to contact his GP at the Mayo Clinic,, as his attending internist, assigned during his admittance, was useless. It took a herculean effort to get an appointment with this man, but only after my father had already passed away.
He admitted that the Mayo Clinic had a ‘fortress-like’ organizational structure, which they were ‘trying to address’, then he gave me his personal cell number. I was like, what good will this do me, now?
I saw a lawyer about a wrongful death suit, but clearly he was not very savvy, because he only told me those suits are based on the amount of money someone would be worth, in terms of income, if they hadn’t died.
At 90, my father was not going to be considered ‘worth much’, which is a sad commentary on how we assess the worth of lives. With a malpractice angle, though, that could be different? I don’t know, but honestly, I didn’t want money.
I wanted to expose this callous money factory that was preying on the elderly in Florida.
With its marble floors and water fountains, big screen TVs, with multitudinous on demand channels, in every room, terrible food and even worse medical care, it seemed more like a luxury hotel staffed with psychopaths than a medical facility. One caveat is that the nurses, as in most places, helped me keep my sanity. They were wonderful, but they unfortunately don’t make the rules.
After that experience, I would not send the wood rats in the nearby forest to the Mayo Clinic for treatment. Well, maybe those would be their only appropriate patients. Warfarin is, essentially, a rat poison.
A 90 yo man came to me once complaining about depression and no energy. His HMO (Kaiser) had put him on Lupron and he had ZERO testosterone. I asked him what the biopsy results showed. Biopsy?
What Biopsy... they had never done one... they actually didn't know if he had prostate cancer. They gave him Lupron based on his PSA (I can only assume). I told him I would be depressed and fatigued if I were 90 and had no Testosterone. Being treated for a disease with Lupron that was never confirmed.
Prostate cancer is slow growing. You don't do anything stupid to a 90 yo man and destroy his quality of life...
Be that as it may, that is the state of conventional medicine.
I know of a case like this. PSA results showed prostate cancer, ergo Lupron. When he died, there was an autopsy. No evidence of prostate cancer. None. Go figure. Quality of life in the last couple of years was awful, joint pain and brain fog.
BINGO
So sad
I think a lot of people have the idea that "catch cancer early" is step one, and then, step 2, go after it with orthodox treatments recommended by recommended doctors as aggressively as possible. That makes sense, assuming (a) "early caught" cancer is always going to develop into something that could ruin your life and then kill you, and (b) that orthodox treatments are provided by doctors who are fully informed, that (c) the clinical studies behind those tests and treatments were truly good in all respects, and that (d) the incentives for all concerned are such that the patient's well-being is foremost. But all that just ain't so.
So what to do? That's another question. But in this particular case I mentioned, I think anything would have been better than the suffering this person endured from his various orthodox treatments for his supposed prostate cancer. He died, by the way, of a completely different cancer.
He died from incompetence from his doctor not caring. Terribly sad and senseless.
Ruth H— I agree it does appear to have been sad and senseless. My view is that the patient would have been much better off to have done nothing since he had no symptoms, just a test result, and based on that blood test result he endured a whole barrage of treatments, including hormonal treatments, over many years. The saddest thing is, in this particular case, with which I am quite familiar, I think the doctor really did care, and the doctor honestly thought he was doing the right thing by his patient. And knowing the patient as I did, I think he would have insisted on some treatment, and preferably an aggressive treatment, no matter what.
There is incompetence out there, yes, and there are many doctors who don't give a dang about other people, yes, but for so many people the these widely accepted paradigms are extremely tough to question. So they don't. And this is what it looks like. Very ugly.
Next - Effexor. Then Vraylar. Then Trazadone.....
My dad when thru this 15 years ago. After the Lupron hormone therapy he went thru manopause. Horrible. If I were the wiser back then I would have pointed him in a different direction. Oncology needs a total reset.
Is there an alternative to Lupron for aggressive PC post surg/rad w/o Mets? Or is this a good area to skip drugs altogether?
My dad was put on statins in the early 2000s, when he was in his 70s. I vociferously argued that he should not take them, because I had found research back then that they were dangerous and unnecessary.
His doctor (he loved doctors) actually responded by taking him off that statin and, unbeknownst to me, replaced it with a different one.
I didn’t find out until many years, and a significant mental decline, later. He also broke his ankle due to ‘osteoporosis’ in his 70s.
I recall now he had been discussing his PSA and an enlarged prostate, years before that, but I didn’t even know that something like Lupron was prescribed for that.
I did think it was odd that a man who had spent his entire life running, hiking, lifting weights and playing tennis would end up with a broken ankle, due to osteoporosis, even at that age. His legs had always looked like tree trunks to me as a kid.
He regularly went to that abattoir, the Mayo Clinic, where he got MRSA during a rotator cuff surgery. He had to spend a month there on IV antibiotics. They also put him on Warfarin, in addition to the statins, but also only found out much later. Because of the osteoporosis, I have to suspect that he was also likely on this Lupron. He also developed low energy and depression at this time.
He died of a complication from Warfarin mismanagement. While trying to advocate for him, I had tried to contact his GP at the Mayo Clinic,, as his attending internist, assigned during his admittance, was useless. It took a herculean effort to get an appointment with this man, but only after my father had already passed away.
He admitted that the Mayo Clinic had a ‘fortress-like’ organizational structure, which they were ‘trying to address’, then he gave me his personal cell number. I was like, what good will this do me, now?
I saw a lawyer about a wrongful death suit, but clearly he was not very savvy, because he only told me those suits are based on the amount of money someone would be worth, in terms of income, if they hadn’t died.
At 90, my father was not going to be considered ‘worth much’, which is a sad commentary on how we assess the worth of lives. With a malpractice angle, though, that could be different? I don’t know, but honestly, I didn’t want money.
I wanted to expose this callous money factory that was preying on the elderly in Florida.
With its marble floors and water fountains, big screen TVs, with multitudinous on demand channels, in every room, terrible food and even worse medical care, it seemed more like a luxury hotel staffed with psychopaths than a medical facility. One caveat is that the nurses, as in most places, helped me keep my sanity. They were wonderful, but they unfortunately don’t make the rules.
After that experience, I would not send the wood rats in the nearby forest to the Mayo Clinic for treatment. Well, maybe those would be their only appropriate patients. Warfarin is, essentially, a rat poison.