When my dad had prostate problems he chose to be castrated, as reducing testosterone production helps slow the disease. He was happy with the result and as a side benefit his personality also softened.

I'm beyond the point that this would help.  It might slow the disease, but in my case, the disease has already progressed to the point that intervention is necessary to stop further damage to the bladder.

Lex

I know I’m rather blunt when it comes to the alternative treatments like Rife, Aroma Therapy, Reflexology, Magnetic Therapy, and a host of others.  Let me explain my general findings on 99.9% of the things I’ve personally investigated, and I've looked into dozens.  In fact, my change in diet is one such investigation which has had good results in most areas but alas no effect on BPH.

Most of the practitioners tout the wonderful benefits and what they call “cure rate” of their particular discipline.   I always ask pointed questions and request specifics both from the practitioners as well whatever patients are willing to talk with me.  Here’s what I’ve found:

In most cases the patients have no diagnosed pathology.  They have only vague symptoms and they credit the easing of these symptoms to whatever treatment they are currently pursuing.  Most of the time the patients I’ve talked to have tried many different treatments, each having a positive effect for the short term but the symptoms inevitably return and the patient seeks the next new  type of treatment.  In today’s vernacular this is often called the placebo effect.  Since in the vast majority of cases there is no organic pathology, there is no way to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of these treatments.

There are times when real pathology exists.  Again, many patients get immediate but temporary relief of symptoms(placebo effect), but there is no measurable or significant change to the good in the actual pathology.

On rare occasions when real pathology exists, there is a spontaneous remission of the pathology which is measurable.  This happens with any treatment protocol and at times with no treatment at all.  In my investigations of the alternative treatments I’ve looked into, the occurrence of spontaneous remission is at the same rate as for any other type of treatment or not treatment at all.

In many cases I’ve tried the alternative treatment myself but unlike most people, I have a real pathology and real indicators that I can measure to determine the effectiveness of the treatment.  Of all the things I’ve tried, the only one that has had any effect at all is the iodine protocol which has dropped my PSA by 0.6 points in 12 months.  Up to this point PSA had been climbing 0.5 points every 12 months for 5 years so the drop is encouraging, but based on the possibility of spontaneous remission (even though slight) is not conclusive.  An interesting point is that the decrease in PSA is not accompanied by a decrease in BPH symptoms.  If the iodine is doing anything, it might be affecting cancer cells, but it is not affecting the continued growth of the prostate.

Because I have gotten a long term positive result from the iodine protocol, I will continue with it to see how it plays out over the long term.  I’ll also continue to investigate other alternative treatments as I run across them but at this point I've pretty much researched what's out there.  If anything else shows promise, I’ll bring it up in this journal.

Lex

Ever tried or heard of the Rife machine?

Yes.  It doesn't work -  at least for me.  There are several Rife practitioners here in Los Angeles.  I went to two of them.  Total waste of time (and money).  Like I said in my previous post, lots of nonsense out there.

Lex

Lex, is having your prostate microwaved the only option you have considered?

Over the years I've considered almost everything from homeopathic to full prostate removal surgery.  I've tried almost every alternative and homeopathic approach with little or nothing in the way of positive results.  I've pretty much run out of options other than more invasive medical procedures.  I'm well beyond "wait and see" or "let's try this".  At this point the longer I wait the more damage is occurring to the bladder.    With the image from the urologist's scope I was easily able to see the stretch marks in my bladder.  These are areas that can no longer contract efficiently -and maybe not at all.  My prostate has grown to about 4 times the size it was when I was 25.  It is pushing into the bladder reducing the bladder's volume and pinching off the flow of urine.

TUMT microwave therapy is the least invasive of the medical procedures and has a reasonable expected outcome with the fewest listed possible complications.  My current prostate size is almost at the upper limit for this procedure so if I don't do this fairly soon I will lose this option and be forced into more radical and invasive procedures.

The picture is not pretty and from what the urologist says, the early onset of my condition is probably mostly genetic.  My father and paternal grandfather both had significant prostate problems as has my uncle (my father's brother).  Based on the current size of my prostate, the urologist is amazed that I've had as few issues as I've had and that the drug therapy (doxasozin) has been effective for so long.  He says that the meds often only work for about 2 years.  They've worked for me for about 9 years.

Lex

Hi, Lex.
If you drink milk instead of water,  you won't have to get up 3-4 times per night to urinate. I had a similar problem in the past. Milk helped me to solve the problem.
I use organic milk only.

Milk doesn't work well for me.   My nose runs and I have continuous post nasal drip if I drink milk - organic or not.  I eat very little dairy.  The occasional plain yogurt (once or twice a year) and that is about it.   More than that and I start having problems.

Lex

You have done a lot of research. What are your thoughts about folates and manganese and (theoretically) expected deficiencies on a meat based ZC diet. Even if we eat liver every day it's nearly impossible to reach the RDAs..

I suppose the key word here is "theoretically".  I haven't had any deficiencies that I'm aware of.  Of course that may not mean much since I'm a single statistic.  Are you aware of any actual documented deficiencies that can be attributed to a proper meat based diet?  If you (or anyone else) discover any I'd be very interested in hearing about it.  Other than that I'm pretty busy and don't spend much time on the Internet.  A couple of weeks ago I was in Dallas, Texas for a week and then Atlanta, Georgia for 4 days.  Just returned yesterday from 4 days in Portland, Oregon.  Today was in Ventura, Calif.  I have very little time to muck about the web looking for potential problems I don't currently have.  I assure you that if a deficiency does make itself known, I'll report it here so that everyone is aware of it.

How much water do you drink in a day?

I drink at least 3 quarts (3 liters) a day and usually more.  I start with 1 quart in the morning with 50mg of iodine in it, I usually drink another quart with my afternoon meal, and then 1 quart in the early evening with the second dose of 50mg of iodine.  I then drink additional water throughout the day as thirst demands and that depends on what I'm doing, the weather etc.
Lex

Lex,  what do you do these days with your retired time?

We're supposed to live until 120++, so you've got lots of time. 

Hi GS,
I work in my shop most every day and then I belong to several nonprofit organizations that keep me busy.  I teach antique clock repair courses several times a year and also give demonstrations of jerky and pemmican making as well.

As an example I just gave a jerky demo last weekend.  I supply all the material including 5 lbs of meat for each participant and everyone goes home with a $10 Jerky Maker filled with meat.  There is no cost to the students - I supply everything.

On Wednesday the 23rd I leave for Ventura CA to teach a 5 day advanced antique clock repair course.

On Feb 1st I spend 3 days at the National Association of Watch and Clock Collector's greater Los Angeles Regional meeting.

On Feb 9th & 10th I give a 2 day Introduction to Horology course  for the Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties chapter of the NAWCC.

On the 28th of Feb fly to Dallas Texas for several days to meet with the director of training for the NAWCC to discuss my participation in rewriting the course curriculum for the NAWCC Field Suitcase Workshop program.

On the 3rd of March I fly to Atlanta Georgia to meet with a friend and spend several days working on a business plan he has for a franchise opportunity.  Will miss class this week (see below) but discussed this with my instructor before signing up of the classes.

The 7th of March I have my monthly luncheon and meeting with several managers and supervisors at the company I retired from.  We discuss the changing business environment, employee problems, evaluate advancement opportunities, corporate initiatives, and other business issues related to working and surviving in a large corporate environment.

In mid March (exact date not yet settled), I'll be flying to Portland Oregon to take a weekend course on putting together Distance Learning courses centered around using a 3 camera system with one camera coupled to a microscope to provide closeup detail when performing and teaching technical procedures.

I'm enrolled in El Camino College taking advanced CNC machining courses in Lathe and Milling Machine operations 5 hours per day on Tuesdays and Thursdays  from Feb 11th through June 10th.

I also make myself available for neighbors and friends to help with their projects.  I live in an old neighborhood and many of my neighbors are in their 80's and 90's.  I help with their computer problems, plumbing problems, phone, Internet and cable TV problems.  In the last 3 years I've upgraded electrical service (installed new breaker and meter panels) for 4 neighbors and 2 relatives.  I've also unstopped drains, installed water purification systems, re-plumbed a house with copper piping, replaced 2 water heaters, redid the lawn and sprinkler systems for 2 neighbors, and a host of other projects.  Most of these people retired years ago and are on small fixed incomes.  I do all work for free including supplying all material.

I open my shop to Boy Scouts and youth groups.  In the past few years I've done 2 Eagle Scout projects and all sorts of youth group stuff.  I helped a youth group from a local community church install a new telephone system for their church (I'm not a member of the church).  I supplied all the material and taught the group how to program and maintain the system.  We do fun stuff as well like making Pine Derby race cars (some not exactly legal) for an annual race held locally.  Lots of fun and the kids love it.

Anyway, I keep busy enough to stay off the streets and out of the bars,

Lex

CK
I'd be interested to know how much of your time is spent on activities that are not in some way profitable to you?  Remember that profit is not always money, but can be anything that you find desirable or valuable.  Money is just a medium of exchange that allows us to trade between various types of value such as labor, goods, services, and entertainment.  Not everything of value is tangible like goods or labor.  Often it is psychological in how something makes us feel such as entertainment or charitable giving.

So how much of your time is spent doing things you absolutely despise doing and receive absolutely nothing you find of value in return for doing them?

In my case I can say almost zero.  If I find no value in something, I quickly stop doing it and redirect my time and effort to something that I find more profitable.

Don't confuse profit motive with corruption and political stupidity.

Lex

He sounds like he worked his arse off.

On another angle...was it worth it Lex?

Yes, for me it was worth it and I would do everything again if I was given a do-over.  I'd even happily re-do my spectacular failures as it was those that taught me the most.  Most people do everything possible to avoid painful situations.  They worry about what they might lose rather than focusing on the opportunity.

I've lost plenty, but I've gained far more than I've lost.  Think about Las Vegas.  The house has a small edge and they make millions.  They are happy to pay out the jackpot on occasion as it brings in more customers.  They know that taking in a small 6 cents of every dollar played, over time they will be rich.  They also know that most people will keep replaying each dollar over and over until, 6 cents at a time, they've given all of it to the house.

All I want is a small advantage and enough time for it to work in my favor.  As an example, in my stock purchase above, most people think the 25 year lock down of funds is a disadvantage.  I see it as the primary advantage that works in my favor.

There are stranger things in heaven and earth, Lex, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

There are people who work two jobs in those places....and they barely keep up with mortgage payments as it is.  that's assuming they can even find the first job, let alone the second.

Have you ever been to eastern Kentucky?  West Virginia?  Rural Appalachia in general?  How about the more depressed rural parts of the rust belt?

I've been to Kentucky and West Virginia as well as Watts in Los Angeles and the Projects in New York.   I started my working life picking fruit, strawberries, cucumbers, and swamping melons with migrant farm workers.   Many of my friends and their families lived in 15 ft travel trailers, often with 5 or 6 children.  We all played in the dirt courtyard of the trailer park.  I lived in a dilapidated old house that was moved to a dirt lot when they built a freeway through our town.  It had been abandoned for 5 years when we purchased it, and it was the only house we could afford.  Nothing in it was straight.  The door frames were crooked and the doors wouldn't open or close. Every window (dozens of panes of glass) had been broken.  The light fixtures had been torn out.  There were large holes in the walls and all the plumbing leaked.  We flushed the toilet by pouring a bucket of water in bowl because the tank on the toilet had been broken and we didn't have the money to replace it.   It is not how you grow up, it is how you think and the choices you make throughout your life that determine how you end.

The reason your house is paid off is because you bought it before Cali real estate shot up.  You pay probably 1/10 the property taxes that many of your neighbors do, and THAT'S why you own the same house since 1976....because of prop 13.

Yes, today I'm able to take advantage of prop 13, but prop 13 made no difference when I purchased the property as I had to pay taxes on the current purchase price and this is true today.  I'm always amused when people think that it was easier to purchase a house years ago than it is now.  Just not true.  I paid $50K for my house in 1976.  At that time I earned 10K a year - about 800/month.  My interest rate was 9.25% and my payment and property taxes were $421 a month - over half my income.  Also notice that the purchase price of my house was 5 times my income.

Today my house will sell for $320K.  My neighbor across the street just sold hers for this amount and we have essentially the same tract house.  The same job that paid me $10K/year in 1976 is now paying $85K/year or $7k/month base salary (yes the exact same job exists and they are hiring).  The cost of the house today is only 3.75 times salary.  Interest rates are less than 4% rather than over 9%  Today's payment including current property taxes is $1,379/mo which is only 20% of today's equivalent monthly pay.  To be in the same financial position that I was when I purchased my house in 1976, where more than half my paycheck went to the house, you'd have to be making less than $15/hr. Purchasing the same house and paying today's property taxes while earning  $15 or more an hour today, and you are in better financial shape than I was in 1976.
 

Also, the cost of living now is a lot higher than it was back in the 80s, and salaries have NOT kept up with inflation.

I know you don't understand that, because you started out back in the early 80s, but it's very true.  Feel free to research it, or I can provide cites. I respect that you worked hard and saved, but that's not even enough these days, particularly in more economically-depressed places.

You don't need to provide citations as I'm living through this mess, but the truth is that what you believe is true today has also been true for every generation.  Every generation believes that the previous generation had it easier. What you call poor today is not even close to the kind of poor I grew up with.  I still have a darning egg and needles for repairing clothes when I was growing up.  Mom made most of our clothes and taught all us kids to sew and patch our own clothes.   I was still making my own shirts - even T-shirts and boxers - and darning the holes in my socks until I was in my late 20's because I wasn't willing to spend the money on commercially made clothes, which at the time were much more expensive than what I could make them for. That is not true today.

You believe that the cost of living today is much higher than it was when I was during most of my generation and that it is impossible to do what I did.  Not true.  It is how I think, the choices I made, and what I was willing to do without that gave me what I have today.   

Let me give you an example of a choice that I made that I doubt that you would make.  I can say this because over 15,000 people were offered the exact same thing I was and only 3 of us took up the offer.

The offer was made in 1980 to purchase $50,000 worth of a utility stock for 1/2 price or $25,000.  What a deal.  You will make an instant $25,000 profit if you accept this offer.  Sounds great until you find out the conditions. 

Condition 1- you must pay $12,500 or half of the purchase price up front.  It doesn't matter where you get the money.  You can borrow it, take it out of savings, whatever, you just have to pay $12,500 to get in.  Remember this is $12,500 in 1980 - not today's dollars.

Condition 2- you must have the remaining $12,500 deducted from your monthly paycheck. This will reduce your takehome pay by $1,040 per month for 1 full year.  The money you pay into this investment is not tax deductible so the full $1040 per month is lost to you for the full year.  You'll have to live on whatever is left in your paycheck.  Of course you can supplement with money from savings if you have it or take on a second job to cover the shortage for the year.  It is up to you.  In my case I was left with the equivalent of just under the 1980 minimum wage as my takehome during the year.  This just paid the mortgage, utilities, and food.  My wife took a job cleaning tables during the lunch rush at a hamburger stand to make ends meet.  She couldn't work full time because we couldn't afford a baby sitter for the kids so she had to be home when they weren't in school. 

Condition 3- you can't sell the stock or borrow against the value of the stock or get any of the money whatsoever from this deal for a minimum of 25 years.

Condition 4- this is just common stock but from a good Utility.  There is no guarantee that the stock will go up in value.  If it stays the same at least you make $25K but that is only 1K per year gain over the 25 year duration of this investment and you would make far more in a common bank CD.  The stock could easily go down to where you lose money, or it could go up and you'll make a good return.  The point is, you assume all risk and your hands are tied for 25 years.

Would you join me and my two other friends and take the offer? 

Again remember that all the sums above are in 1980 dollars.  If you want to judge this against the $85/K salary I said my job at that time pays today you must also increase everything else by 5 or 6 times.  In other words, today the initial payment would be between $60,000 and $72,000, and the monthly deduction from your check would be between $5,000 and $6,000 per month leaving you between $1,000 and $2,000 per month to live on.

If I were 29 years old today, would I take this deal if it were offered today and have to live off of $1,000 to $2000 per month ($6-$12/hr) in today's dollars for the next year, sacrificing cell phones, cable TV, grass-fed beef, riding a bicycle and not owning a car, and all the rest?  The answer for me is an unqualified yes - in a heartbeat. 

Cherimoya Kid,
Again your faith in your assumptions about someone whom you know very little about amazes me.    Experience taught me early on that I can't predict much about another person's life from the limited information they reveal about themselves in public, and that includes forums, blogs, and social websites.  I also learned the hard way, that as a supervisor and manager for 30 years in a fortune 500 company, I couldn't accurately predict much about a co-worker or employee's home life from their behaviour at work.

I wouldn't bet the farm on your assumptions about me.

Lex

The iodine protocol is made for the carbohydrate-addicted, and vit. C is necessary for them. Not so for us.
I bet that the idea that carnivores might try iodine has never occurred to the inventors.
I used to use vit. C to be rid of the foul taste of cigarettes, no longer needed since I started taking the ATP co-factors.

What evidence do you have that Vitamin C is not recommended as part of the iodine protocol for people eating a low carb diet?  I've found nothing to support this.

Beware zinc!   I can't find it in the iodine protocol at breastcancerchoices.org
It is a copper antagonist, and must have washed too much copper out of me, resulting in supposedly deadly heart arrhythmia. I took 30 mg/day with 2 gm. Vit. C for years, and did not know that it must be balanced with copper separately - IIRC about 4 hours separation.
There should be plenty of zinc in the raw beef you eat.

The suggestion for supplementing with zinc came from a pub-med extract.  I decided to go with it for the relative short term of this experiement.

Lex

@Phil - The zinc I take is a chelated form.  It is part of the iodine protocol that I'm working on for the BPH issue.  I take 50mg/day which is a fairly large dose.

@William - The Vit C is part of the iodine protocol and is considered very important if not critical to its success.  As I remember you are the one that recommended the iodine protocol in the first place and provided the links describing the critical co-factors of which Vitamin C is one.  I don't remember any disclaimer stating that if I don't eat a carb centric diet that I should not take vit C as part of the iodine protocol.   News to me.

@Cherimoya_Kid - Where do you get the idea that I'm seldom exposed to children or other sources of common infections?  Since we've never met, I'd be intersted in what evidence you have to support such a statement.  I'm sure the students of the classes I teach, the youth groups I support, the community organizations that I belong to, and my class mates at the local Jr College that I attend would be interested as well.

@Adora - Thanks for the kind words and thoughts.  I doubt that I'll die, well not today anyway.  Just wanted to let people know that no matter what you do, you are not immune from the everyday maladies the befall everyone.  So many people seem to think that there is some "perfect" lifestyle that will protect them from everything.  When I was young I believed this myself, then the realities of life got in the way and burst my bubble.  I try to report the good and the bad in my journal just so people know that there is no perfection in life, at least on on this earth.

Lex