Hello - New to this fourm.
Just a little background - I am a 33 y/o male with a hx of prostatitis (never formally diagnosed) since I was a teenager. It would come and go during stressful periods in my life. I am also a T2 diabetic (well controlled with Ha1c < 7.0). I have lost about 30 pounds in the last three months or so but this was on purpose as I have the weight to lose. I am 6'4" and I weighed 276 at my peak and this morning I weighed 243. My fasting BG is usually between 110 - 130, which is good for a diabetic. So I know that I have that risk factor, and I have a vitamin D deficiency, which is also a risk factor for PCa.
Back in March of this year, right around the 10th of the month, I started to feel strange cramping in the lower left quadrant of my abdomen. I was also having strange "bathroom issues," mostly related to BMs, not urination. So of course being the hypochondriac that I am, I started Googling and figured out that I could possibly have colon cancer. So my GP referrs me to a GI specialist and then orders an abdominal CT Scan. The GI specialist thought that I it was unlikely that I had colon cancer but I wasn't quite convinced and I insisted on a colonoscopy. He scheduled one for May 9th which was nearly two months after my visit with him on March 20th. My CT Scan (double contrast) was on March 20th but that came back clean. The radiologist who performed the CT Scan even met with me for 30 minutes to review the scan and he had it pulled up on his three-monitor workstation so I could see it from three perspectives. It was actually really cool. He said that other than a fatty liver, he couldn't see anything - no enlarged lymph nodes, nothing. However, the cramping on my left side, which would "travel" between the bottom of my ribcage and my hip flexor, was very persistent and wouuldn't go away. It never really hurt. On a scale of 1-10, it was always a 2 -3 with a max of 4. It never woke me up at night and it never really restricted me from doing anything physically. Sometimes it was a cramp, sometimes it was an ache, sometimes it was more like a burning sensation. Sometimes it would also "wrap around" my body to the lower left side of my back and the upper left side of my buttocks. The persistence of this symptom drove me crazy and I literally had a nervous breakdown over the possibility of having colon cancer because my BMs were still inconsistent. (I also have a hx of severe anxiety with intermittent panic attacks; although I hadn't had a severe panic attack since 2005.) At this point my GP (who I started seeing in 2010 and never told about my anxiety issues) put me on Xanax which I took every eight hours around the clock. Believe it or not, the Xanax actually relieved the symptoms in general for a short time before it wore off and it was time for the next dose. Anyway, I went ahead with the colonoscopy on May 9th and the GI performed an endoscopy on the same day. The endoscopy was clean and the colonoscopy only found a very small polyp which according to my GI "would take 2 or three THOUSAND years to become cancerous." So, clean colonoscopy as well.
However, the cramps / aches / burning sensations on my left side were still there. What could it be? I did a follow-up with my GP for the scopes (this was last week) and for the anxiety meds and she asked if there was anything else in my hx that I never bothered to tell her about. At this point I mentioned that I had what my GP at the time (circa 1997 @ age 17) thought was prosta*** and that it would come and go from time to time, maybe once or twice a year intermittently. I often "dribble" urine at the end of urination, rarely I have burning during urination, and I usually have "broken streams" toward the end of urinating. However, I never had flow issues (always strong) and I never woke up at night to urinate. Long story short, she ordered a PSA. I had known about the PSA from my father-in-law who had an elevated score (above 4.0) but a biopsy came back negative for him. I wasn't supposed to get the bloodwork until mid-June because that was the time for my quarterly diabetes bloodwork.
However, I started playing "Dr. Google" again and I read that my previously described left side issues would possibly be bone mets in my ribs and my hip from advanced prostate cancer. So I started to feel every ache and twinge (now in my groin and upper left thigh) in my body and I have now convinced myself that I have a rare form of aggressive prostate cancer that affects younger men. So on Tuesday morning I went in for the bloodwork because I was anxious to find out my PSA. I knew my GP would get annoyed with me, but I was so anxious about it that I didn't care. The results came back yesterday and the PSA was 1.2. My GP isn't concerned about it at all, but I am freaked out because it is my understanding that a PSA of 1.2 is high for someone in their 30s. I also read that there are forms of PCa that do not show very high PSA numbers and that these mutations are rare and very aggressive (and thus hard to treat). So yesterday I start to feel aching in my perineum and heaviness in my testicles - another case of prostitis, or is it actually advanced prostate cancer that has been developing all this time? Since I am diabetic I drink a lot of water so I tend to urinate a lot; sometimes 2 or 3 times an hour depending on how much I drink. However, yesterday I started to dribble a lot and I started to feel tingling at the tip of my penis as well. I am completely freaked out.
My problem is that everyone from my wife to my GP thinks that I am crazy from my two month colon cancer episode. My GP even said that if the colonoscopy came back clean, which she expected it to do (and it did), that I would simply move on to something else to convince myself that death is imminent. So I am afraid to ask her for a referral to a urologist and I tried to keep it from my wife but she figured me out and is now very upset. She is convinced that I am doing this to myself.
I am going to ask my GP to refer me to a urologist but I am unsure where to go from there. Should I ask for a bone scan? I get the feeling that I am just going to be brushed off and told that "it's all in your head."
Sorry if this is too much or if this is inappropriate for this fourm. It helps me to get things written down and to get some objective perspectives from people who don't know me personally.
Best Regards-
Chris