The 3 Stages Of Understanding Your PSA and Prostate

Introduction

Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) and how to understand its 3 stages is difficult to identify because they are very subtle, but they are there. Here are the 3 stages I went through when I was diagnosis with an elevated PSA.

What Is An Elevated PSA

A normal PSA reading for a man should be < 3 ng/mL. If it is above this and depending on your age, it could be indicative of a problem with your prostate. It could be cancer of the prostate, an enlarged prostate or prostatitis. I did not know this when I was diagnosis with and elevated PSA, in fact I did not know anything about my prostate.

When I was told I had an elevated PSA I went through 3 stages of understanding my PSA and my prostate, you will too when you get told that you have an elevated PSA and most men over 50 will be diagnosis with an elevated PSA.

Stage 1 - Ignorance

Ignorance is the first stage you will go through. I did not even know that on my annual physical the doctors measured my PSA, why they measured it and what was the purpose of a prostate.
Imagine my surprise when my doctor told me my PSA was elevated and I needed a biopsy on my prostate to determine if it was cancerous. Not understanding what PSA was or what my prostate was, I just went with the flow and received the biopsy

Step 2 - Understanding

When I left the doctor's office, my first step was to determine what a PSA was and what was a prostate. What I found was that it is was a measure of the enzyme produced by your prostate and it is normally kept in your prostate and urinary tract. If large amounts of this enzyme is released to the blood stream, then you could have a problem with your prostate.

This enzyme produced by the prostate is important to a man's reproductive system, since it keeps the semen in liquid form.

With my PSA being only 5.8 ng/mL and having a clear digital rectal exam, I started to breath a little easier.

I went ahead with my biopsy and the results came back benign for cancer that is indicative of an enlarged prostate. So the final result was I had an enlarged prostate.

Step 3 - Acceptance

I have lived to learn with my elevated PSA and enlarged prostate. In fact one of the first questions I now ask my doctor what is my PSA score. I do this because I have learned to take care of my prostate and reduce it to minimize any complications I could develop from this condition. So it is important to me to reduce my prostate.

These complications include such complications as urinary tract infection, bladder stones, kidney damage, and acute or chronic urinary retention and bladder damage

Conclusion

If you are approaching 50 years of age or are over 50, you need to understand what PSA is so you can understand the test results when they are returned during your physical exam.