Just Posted for some encouragement

[Steven Winter]

I was scheduled for surgery with Dr. Krongrad today but there was a big mixup with my insurance company and I had to reschedule. I had a TURP done three months ago and since then I have to triple my pain medicine(and this does not take the pain away.), lost all of my energy and still have the foley in.
I took the article of a Hole in the Fence twice into him and both times he threw it in the trash can and told me that he thought I "was smarter than that" to read junk off the internet.
This prostatitis needs a voice in Washington and the AUA needs to address this horrible illness.
Has anybody else had a TURP where it made the symptoms worse and then when the prostate was removed felt better.

Steve

[Steven Winter]

After proof reading when I said taking into him ,I meant the urologist that did the TURP.I will blame the sloppy writing on my pain meds.

Steve

[Mike]

I agree that this debilitating disease does not get the national exposure it needs to get an increase in the quality and effectiveness of available protocols and treatment.

On the issue of a Doctor demonstrating the degree of apparent narrow mindedness you describe, I say...its time to get a new doctor. On the other hand my experience tells me that most urologists are schooled to be very cynical about using prostate removal surgery to solve this problem. In my case I consulted several doctors that I have seen for treatment for chronic prostatitis who, to a man, urged me not to have my prostate removed. I am thankful today that I did not follow their advice.

[Arnon Krongrad, MD]

Urologists are not schooled to be cynical. Urologists are taught to be data driven, which is very legitimate and quite important to patients. The data have not been available to support surgery for prostatitis. So on this basis there is no rationale for surgery.

The idea for surgery came from the experience of David Radford, who has quite publicly now shared his story. It did not happen randomly. It did happen after he was warned of risk with surgery and after he was warned that there were no data to support his request for prostatectomy. David is now three or more years out, with complete relief and no negative effects from surgery. He is the first of his kind -- relieved, functional, and public -- and very few people know he exists.

There is no surprise at all that doctors do not want to do prostatectomy for prostatitis. Much as the Spanish were not eager to sail to the ends of the Earth before Columbus did and showed that it wasn't flat. How can you know in the absence of data?

To move us forward will require more experiences with surgery for prostatitis, more public sharing of observations, including by such men as David Radford, and more dessimation of the observations that "the earth is not flat." This will not happen quickly, no matter how zealous or correct are the the men who believe that surgery for prostatitis can be salutary in some cases.

As we move ahead, it will not help us and/or be legitimate to condemn and/or dismiss doctors who are rightly first doing no harm. Calm, measured, objective data are the only way forward. It will take time to compile them. That is the nature of real, legitimate, and sustainable progress.