The advice on prostate cancer screening has swung back and forth for years. Test, don’t test, wait, ask your doctor. And all that contradiction leaves a lot of men doing the one thing they shouldn’t. Nothing.
Consider this. Even the most medically protected man in the country wasn’t safe. Former President Biden was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer, and it happened in part because the guidelines themselves say men over 70 generally don’t need routine screening. His doctor had stopped testing. If it can slip past that much scrutiny, the rest of us cannot afford to wait.
I watched the same thing nearly happen with Jay. His doctor hesitated because his numbers had been normal three years earlier. Jay pushed for the test anyway. By the time we found it, the cancer had already spread, and he’d had no symptoms at all. That push saved his life.
So in this episode I sat down with someone who could give us real answers. Tyler Weisent is an oncology certified nurse practitioner at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center, specializing in radiation oncology, and he was one of our lifelines through Jay’s treatment. We asked him the questions every man and every family deserves to have answered.
If you have been confused about what to do, or putting it off because no one has given you a straight answer, this is the conversation to listen to.
A glimpse inside:
What the screening guidelines actually say, and where they may be quietly failing men. Why feeling fine tells you nothing. How doctors figure out whether a prostate cancer is the slow kind or the dangerous kind. What men get wrong about treatment, and the fears that lead them to the wrong choice. And the one takeaway Tyler gives every man he meets.
Just because you feel good doesn’t mean everything’s going great for you.
Mentioned in this episode:
This is the final episode in a three-part series for Men’s Health Month. It follows “There Is No Small Talk in a Cancer Waiting Room” and “Prostate Cancer: One Man’s Honest Story,” Jay’s account of his own diagnosis and treatment.
Our Expert Guest: Tyler Weisent, CNP
Tyler Weisent is an American oncology certified nurse practitioner at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Cleveland Ohio and specializes in radiation oncology. Tyler primary focus is providing care for patients with genitourinary cancer.
Specifically, in the setting of newly diagnosed prostate cancer, biochemically recurrent prostate cancer, metastatic prostate cancer, bladder and renal cancer, as well as palliative treatment. He is also part of the clinical trials team as a private investigator helping to develop new treatment methods for advanced settings of prostate cancer. He is a local resident of Northeast Ohio, obtaining his bachelor’s from Kent State and master’s from the University of Cincinnati. He has now been located in Cleveland for the last ten years.
If you or somebody that you love is interest in learning more about advanced prostate cancer research trials or need a clinical consultation.
His team at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center can be reached by clicking this link.
Listen and connect:
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