Today, Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee talk with special guest and friend of the podcast, Mark, about his journey with prostate cancer. Mark describes the decision-making process that led him to select HIFU, or high intensity focused ultrasound, as his treatment for prostate cancer. This amazing procedure can target localized prostate cancer while leaving the surrounding areas untouched, minimizing the risks of incontinence and erectile dysfunction. Listen in as a patient and his surgeon discuss what going through the HIFU is really like.
Voted top Men's Health Podcast, Sex Therapy Podcast, and Prostate Cancer Podcast by FeedSpot
Dr. Mistry is a board-certified urologist and has been treating patients in the Austin and Greater Williamson County area since he started his private practice in 2007.
We enjoy hearing from you! Email us at armormenshealth@gmail.com and we’ll answer your question in an upcoming episode.
Phone: (512) 238-0762
Email: Armormenshealth@gmail.com
Website: Armormenshealth.com
Our Locations:
Round Rock Office
970 Hester’s Crossing Road
Suite 101
Round Rock, TX 78681
South Austin Office
6501 South Congress
Suite 1-103
Austin, TX 78745
Lakeline Office
12505 Hymeadow Drive
Suite 2C
Austin, TX 78750
Dripping Springs Office
170 Benney Lane
Suite 202
Dripping Springs, TX 78620
Today, Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee talk with special guest and friend of the podcast, Mark, about his journey with prostate cancer. Mark describes the decision-making process that led him to select HIFU, or high intensity focused ultrasound, as his treatment for prostate cancer. This amazing procedure can target localized prostate cancer while leaving the surrounding areas untouched, minimizing the risks of incontinence and erectile dysfunction. Listen in as a patient and his surgeon discuss what going through the HIFU is really like.
Voted top Men's Health Podcast, Sex Therapy Podcast, and Prostate Cancer Podcast by FeedSpot
Dr. Mistry is a board-certified urologist and has been treating patients in the Austin and Greater Williamson County area since he started his private practice in 2007.
We enjoy hearing from you! Email us at armormenshealth@gmail.com and we’ll answer your question in an upcoming episode.
Phone: (512) 238-0762
Email: Armormenshealth@gmail.com
Website: Armormenshealth.com
Our Locations:
Round Rock Office
970 Hester’s Crossing Road
Suite 101
Round Rock, TX 78681
South Austin Office
6501 South Congress
Suite 1-103
Austin, TX 78745
Lakeline Office
12505 Hymeadow Drive
Suite 2C
Austin, TX 78750
Dripping Springs Office
170 Benney Lane
Suite 202
Dripping Springs, TX 78620
Welcome to the armor. Men's health hour with Dr. Mystery and Donna Lee.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the armor. Men's health hour. I am Dr. Mystery, your host of board certified urologist here with my co-host business development manager, former office manager, all around great person, Don Lee
Speaker 3:Board certified
Speaker 2:Co-host certified debatable. This is a radio show because of my wonderful radio voice<laugh> but we also have this show available as a podcast. Where do people get the podcast done?
Speaker 3:You can listen to the podcast, surprisingly, everywhere you listen to free podcasts, which is still odd to me that I can be in my car and put on Amazon or iTunes or iHeartRadio. And he, there we are, and it pops up in my little picture and I can look at us while I drive.
Speaker 2:I just got my headshot retaken so that I would look,
Speaker 3:Oh, they sent me 20 options and told me that you wanted me to pick. I'm still working on that. Well, there you go. All the gray inner beard was shocking.
Speaker 2:You know what? I'm not an old man. I'm
Speaker 3:A young man Photoshop guy.
Speaker 2:<laugh> this show is brought to you by
Speaker 3:The oh, by the way. You're a grandpa now. Congratulations,
Speaker 2:Graham. Thank you so much. Mm-hmm<affirmative> this show is brought to you by NAAU urology specialist. That is the specialty, uh, urology specialty practice started in 2007. Initially it was called north Austin neurology, but then we became all around Austin. That's
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Is where the show was brought to you
Speaker 3:From N AU.
Speaker 2:So we had to change to AAU so I could keep the website, but now, you know, who knows? Oh,
Speaker 3:Get me started.
Speaker 2:Google's getting it's very, it's impossible to gain the system
Speaker 3:Nowadays. The problem was that we were called north Austin neurology and doctors in south Austin refused to send patients Uhhuh because they thought they didn't even know where were
Speaker 2:I was above the river.
Speaker 3:That's right. Don't cross that river.
Speaker 2:People that come from out Texas will be like that river. You have to afford the river.
Speaker 3:No, it's you can't drive over the river on a bridge.
Speaker 2:It's just like Austin. There's multiple bridges over<laugh>. And so we practice kind of a more, uh, patient centric, holistic type approach here. You're not just a number. We are the second biggest urology group in Austin.
Speaker 3:That's right. You know what that
Speaker 2:Means? We just try to learn.
Speaker 3:We're a little cuter
Speaker 2:<laugh> we do make every effort to see you quickly, uh, try to follow the three A's of a successful specialty practice, avail, availability,
Speaker 3:A ability,
Speaker 2:A ability and ability. Oh, okay. We'd like to think that you want ability to be the most important thing in your doctor, but what we know is that seeing one quick<laugh>
Speaker 3:That's
Speaker 2:It, it's very
Speaker 3:Important. Get me in there with my penis problems.
Speaker 2:Just get me in there. We try to give you good, nice and available doctors around here. You may see one of our amazing mid-level providers, PAs and nurse practitioners, specifically trained in urology
Speaker 3:By you,
Speaker 2:By the way. So trained by me. I mean, really I would put them up against almost any other office-based urologist, right? Uh, they're exceptionally intelligent, um, ready to give you time and energy takes to take care of you and, uh, will initiate all of my treatment plans to ATT
Speaker 3:So, and they're all just kind of like seeing you, but with smaller hands<laugh> all
Speaker 2:Of them, people do like the
Speaker 3:Smaller hands, even the men. So if you wanna see Dr. Mystery, but a smaller set of hands, try one of our mid levels.
Speaker 2:<laugh>, you know, the, the diagnosis of prostate cancer is something that comes up quite frequently. Yeah. And I thought we talk about that today and if you're looking for a second opinion, we'd love to see you, uh, about prostate cancer. Donna, how do people do
Speaker 3:That? You can call us at(512) 238-0762. Dr. Mystery is happy to do a second opinion for you, especially for prostate cancer. Um, we can do a telemedicine over the phone. If you're out of state or out of city, our website is armor men's health.com and our email address for your amazing questions is armor men's health, gmail.com.
Speaker 2:So, uh, next week I have a patient who contacted us from California. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer, pretty low volume. Uh, wanted to get information on a what treatment options do I have for prostate cancer that don't involve radiation waiting around or surgery
Speaker 3:Or erectile dysfunction. I
Speaker 2:Bet. And it will not affect my erections and not cause me to be in incontinent mm-hmm<affirmative>. And so it was a great opportunity for us to go through today, the treatment choice of high food or high intensity focused ultrasound. So Donna HIFU has been around the United States only for about five to seven years. You know how long it's been in Europe,
Speaker 3:Like 20, 20 years? Why do they get all the good stuff?
Speaker 2:Really? They have, they have amazing data.
Speaker 3:Why is that? Why is it there 20 years in here? Just a few
Speaker 2:Years, the big company's a French company that
Speaker 3:Was terrible.<laugh> let's hear it again.
Speaker 2:<laugh> a French company.<laugh> and so, um, it was a company based out of France. The technology is quite familiar to all of us, just even lay people. We can use sound waves to annoy people, talking to them.
Speaker 3:You do that to me all the time.
Speaker 2:We can use sound waves to break things like glass. When you have a very high pitched voice, we can use sound waves to destroy or pit surfaces. That's how they learned, uh, about using sh shockwave to, or sound waves to break up stones because they would do these high intensity sound, wave tests on metal parts of planes and find that it would pit the metal planes. I
Speaker 3:Thought you were gonna say, monkeys,
Speaker 2:Monkeys, no, no monkeys. And we know that we can use sound waves to kill tissue mm-hmm<affirmative> and it does it by heating up tissue. And what's cool about sound waves that you can concentrate it to a point far away from where the sound wave starts. Mm-hmm<affirmative> so you can burn something, you know, feet away from you or in the case of high food, you know, just a few
Speaker 3:Inches. That's amazing. It doesn't burn the outside of the skin, like a burn burn, right.
Speaker 2:That's right. And it kills the tissue. And so we can burn the prostate tissue. That's what H food's approved for by theba. Uh, excuse me, FDA FBA, FBA, FDA. It's approved for killing a prostate tissue. And what's what's amazing today is that now we can use technology to just kill just part of the prostate gland. Mm-hmm<affirmative> we can leave the nerves that help your erections. I mean, we have within, within our own family, we have people that have, have had high food on, uh, had maintained their erections, which were, was very important to them. If
Speaker 3:We're talking about one of my family members, we don't wanna talk about that just cuz I don't wanna picture anybody. I know the direction.<laugh>
Speaker 2:Sorry. We'll get rid of that screens there then. Okay.
Speaker 3:<laugh>
Speaker 2:We have uh, so, so this patient from California, really just to give you an illustration of the, kind of the kind of care that we are, we give everyone mm-hmm,<affirmative> one of the things that we don't want to do if you have prostate cancer is do it on the inappropriate patient. So patients come to us so excited. I want this done. I hear that it's gonna work well for me, it's covered by Medicare and some other insurances and I want this done. And so we say, ho, ho, ho, slow down. Is it Christmas? And so both with this patient in California, he ended up having a severely large prostate and not emptying his bladder to the point of being quite ridiculous. And when I tried to set him to his original urologist, take care of it, mm-hmm<affirmative> I was like, did you not check his prostate or anything about him before you diagnosed him with prostate cancer? I was like, really like surprised
Speaker 3:Irritated.
Speaker 2:And then, then when I tried to send him back, he was like, well, he decided not do my treatment, so I'm not gonna see him. I was like, what kind of pouty person is this urologist like a grown up urologist. So, so I, I called, I called up a, a classmate of, well, he was before me from Baylor college of medicine where I did residency. Right. And the moment I knew he went to Baylor. I knew that this guy was not only gonna be amazing in terms of how he was gonna care for the patient, but right. Ready to pick up the phone.
Speaker 3:Aww
Speaker 2:Well that's and his name is Dino DeConcini. Oh. And I thought that was the coolest name. Hey, do know Dino. He can see me. And so he took care of this patient, uh, did a, um, a TURP on him, helped him or a rotor Ruter or whatever you're gonna call it. He opened up his prostate, allowed him to pee much better. And now, you know, like a true gentleman sending him down here to, for me to fix his high food. Oh. Uh, we had a patient, uh, similarly that was in Tennessee mm-hmm<affirmative> that wanted high food done. They had a prostate that was too big for the procedure. We sent them to Vanderbilt mm-hmm<affirmative> to do prostate artery embolization, a really cool way of shrinking the prostate he's peeing like a champ. He came in last month and got his high food done. Wow. Uh, communicating the, uh, importance of screening as well as treatment options is something that we do quite frequently on this show. And I don't think there's a better person to do that than a patient that's experienced it themselves. And so we're really lucky to have, uh, one of our patients. Mark, mark. Welcome.
Speaker 4:Hey, thanks.
Speaker 2:Uh, mark and Donna, you guys, uh, had a relationship before he became a patient face
Speaker 4:Right. First day, walked in and saw her face. And that's right. Put me at ease.
Speaker 3:Mark used to be the bartender at cap city comedy for how many years?
Speaker 4:True. Over 20, 20, 20 years. Unfortunate 24, 24 years. One place 24 is the unfortunate part. The experience was fantastic.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. You got to meet everybody.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Everyone and I loved working there
Speaker 3:And the famous comics that come in will always ask about mark. If he's there is mark McMan
Speaker 4:Is still here this day.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's awesome. And, and Donna, our resident comedian and practice manager is somebody that knows that comedy little
Speaker 4:Group.
Speaker 3:Well, I used to be a regular there and mark mark has given me more free drinks than I can. Oh boy. Ever talk about, oh, I mean cough drinks, exactly. And lots of fried food. It was great. Thanks mark.
Speaker 2:So, uh, so mark, you were referred to us for, um, an elevated PSA, which is how a lot of patients get to a urologist. You're pretty young. What do you think prompted getting tested? And then what was your number when you were sent to us?
Speaker 4:Well, um, my father had prostate cancer, so I was already, um, in the zone to get tested when I was younger. So I was tested at 49. Uh, my levels were at 7.8 initially. And then a follow up was at 8.1.
Speaker 2:And that's a pretty high number. I mean, for, for a young guy.
Speaker 4:That's what I'm told<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's why he is here. What were some of the things that you were really scared about before you saw me and what was going through your head kind of at
Speaker 4:That time cancer? Um, mainly you don't think of it as a simple thing. The worst fears come to mind just, uh, needed to know what the situation was so that I could learn about it and then know how to proceed.
Speaker 2:What did your dad, uh, experience in terms of, uh, his experience with prostate cancer treatment and, and, uh, and how did he do? Well,
Speaker 4:He found out much older. He, he was 68 when he found out he decided to go, uh, full on prostatectomy,
Speaker 2:Prostatectomy, getting it out
Speaker 4:Prostatectomy. Yeah. I was like, how do you say it? So he went for the full situation back then. Um, I think that was about 35 years ago.
Speaker 2:A lot of things have changed in terms of treatment and, uh, you really got to benefit from some of that, those advancements in, in treatment. Absolutely. And so we did your prostate biopsy and, uh, was that something that you were scared about? Uh, undergoing?
Speaker 4:It was just a nervous situation for me. I had never had any type of surgical procedure done before never been sick or hospitalized. So this was the first mm-hmm<affirmative> major procedure that I had ever done. So, um, a little nervous going into it, you know, after having met with you and talked with Donna and the staff there, which is fantastic by the way, thank you. They put me at ease, so I decided to go with it. And
Speaker 2:So we did that prostate biopsy and then ultimately diagnosed you with prostate cancer. Correct. Were you prepared mentally for that diagnosis? Were you surprised how? I mean, because you were already kind of primed. Yeah. But still in that, in that environment, tell me how you responded and what went, went through your mind. Well,
Speaker 4:I thought I was prepared<laugh> um, it, it's still shocking when you hear the words you have prostate cancer. Um, so it was initially the PSA just suggested that it was a possibility mm-hmm<affirmative> that there were other options that could be a possibility, but that the only way really to find out was to have the biopsy. So then finding out that information, um, was a little overwhelming, but I had one option which was to move forward. Right.
Speaker 2:So, so we felt like your cancer was more aggressive than one that we could just watch. And we felt like that treatment should be, should be
Speaker 4:Offered to you. Yeah. And I also think that my age had something to do with your reasoning. Absolutely saying, you know, you're too young to, to not do anything that therefore you have to do something.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I, a lot of people who are especially, uh, around the age of 50, we kind of tell them that even if your cancer's gonna act like a slow moving train, you got a lot of years for that train to cause some damage. Exactly. And so we offered you, uh, several different kinds of treatments. We offered you removal of the prostate, right? We offered you radiation mm-hmm<affirmative> and then we offered you high intensity focused ultrasound or high food treatment or relatively new treatment. And that's ultimately the one you went with. Uh, maybe you could tell us what was, what went on with that, uh, that decision. Uh, what, what, what went through your mind on deciding what kind of treatment to go through?
Speaker 4:Just I many factors, but mostly I think my relative youth<laugh> in wanting to maintain, um, all of the faculties Haifu has reduced percentage ratings of the major side effects, like erect dysfunction and, uh, incontinence, those two things way too young to deal with in, in my brain.<laugh>, you know, cancer's one thing, but the other two things are extended lifelong mm-hmm, uh, issues that I'm not ready and was not ready and still probably will never be ready to<laugh> deal with. So I figured those two things were like the major factors that led me to, to Haifu
Speaker 2:You, you really illustrate the double edge sword of being young with prostate cancer. Yeah. The double edge sword is that you want to be super aggressive in patients who are young, but you also know as your physician, that the side effects of treatment are things that you're gonna experience for a much longer time in your life.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, giving you advice, um, giving young people advice is always tough because, uh, on one hand, if we're too lackadaisical about being aggressive about treatment, then we gotta deal with this cancer again and again and again, and if we're, uh, overly aggressive, then we've gotta deal with the side effects of treatment, which take a, you know, the further you get away from your diagnosis. Yeah. The, the, the less you remember how scared you were of dying and the more you think about all the functional loss that you're experiencing.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Mm-hmm
Speaker 2:<affirmative> so, so we did HIFU on you and, uh, we did some preparation, uh, for it may maybe talk through, uh, what that experience was like of going through HIFU, because it's a, it's a, it's an, it's a procedure that's not offered to everyone. And so not a lot of people are gonna have family members that went through it. So your experience is gonna really give people a lot of, uh, a lot to think about,
Speaker 4:Right. You talk about the high food specifically, or the tur preceding the high food.
Speaker 2:Let's just talk about the high food
Speaker 4:<laugh>. Okay. Um, the high food, simple procedure, really, um, and the facility was amazing. Um, the staff, there was incredible. Put me at ease, um, went under, um, anesthesia and woke up a couple hours later and really felt no pain at all. Um, I guess the, the main situation that is that you have a catheter in for a week and you have to maintain, um, that generally stayed at home, took a week's vacation. Um, and then at the end of the week, the day that I had the catheter removed, I went back to work.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Yeah. And, uh, do you think that you experienced a lot of pain in that week or subsequently
Speaker 4:For the high food specific? Uh, very minimal pain and very minimal discomfort? Um, I was shocked<laugh> quite frankly, I thought it was gonna be a lot more severe than that. Um, but it was not, it was, uh, very, um, simple. Um, I literally felt like I was on vacation at home.<laugh> working rather than vacation. Yeah. Just watching a lot of movies and, uh, was very comfortable. Well,
Speaker 2:That's awesome. And your, your, your cancer was amenable to something called a, um, a focal or regional Haifu. We didn't have to treat the entire prostate. Right. Just where the cancer was. It's what Haifu allows us to do more than any other technology. Sure. And you picked that because you wanted to maintain your continents and sexual function. Mm-hmm<affirmative> maybe you would share with us, uh, you know, how's that going?<laugh>,
Speaker 4:It's where everything works. Great. Wow. Um, no, there have been no side effects for me. Um, as a result of the HIFU, I have no problems with, um, erectile dysfunction and zero issues with incontinence. That's awesome. So I feel very blessed to have made the right choice for me, um, coming in and out of it with the results that I have. Mm-hmm<affirmative> um, I have lots of energy working out at the gym again, um, working 10 hours a day at my job. Oh, no, no boy. It's not the comedy club anymore.<laugh> it's not as funny there. Right.<laugh> it's true. But, uh, yeah, just a lot of, um, stamina, energy Xtra, all of it still there.
Speaker 2:Well, it's an incredible, uh, you're, you're an inspiration and a real example for so many patients and somebody that people can look to to know that even though they may be faced with a really troubling diagnosis, like prostate cancer yeah. That there is that there is, you know, hope at the end of that tunnel and that, you know, maintaining your function is something that a lot of people can expect.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Was the goal from the beginning. And, um, very fortunate I believe to have found you and your clinic and Donna mm-hmm,<affirmative> being there as well. And, uh, took me step by step through the whole process.
Speaker 2:Well, that's awesome. It's almost like fate. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Does feel that way. We've
Speaker 3:Had lots of texts and mot and love you and<laugh> yeah. You're gonna be fine. There's
Speaker 4:A lot of that happening. So a lot of support.
Speaker 2:Well, mark, thank you so much for joining us. Sure. And lending us your experience. Uh, it's something that, um, I hope that, uh, our listeners will, um, will really kind of build upon and, uh, face a new prostate cancer diagnosed with some more confidence.
Speaker 4:Great. I'm glad to be of assistance in
Speaker 3:That. Awesome. Well,
Speaker 2:Thank you. Well, thank you so much, Donna. You wanna tell people how to get ahold
Speaker 3:Of it? Yes. You can. Uh, email us at armor men's health, gmail.com. If you have any questions about, um, Mark's experience, I'm certainly happy to reach out to him. If you've got any direct questions. Our email address again is armor men's health, gmail.com. You can reach us during the week at 5 1 2 2 3 8 0 7 6 2. And our website is armor men's health.com. Thank you so much, mark. A having appreciate you so much.