Dustin Fontenot on Interpreting Your PSA Results and Whether Spark Wave Could Treat Your ED

Thanks for tuning in to the Armor Men’s Health Hour Podcast today, where we bring you the latest and greatest in urology care and the best urology humor out there.

In this segment, Donna Lee is joined by NAU Urology Specialist's own Dustin Fontenot, PA-C. Dustin is the director of our Armor Men's Health program  and provides oversight for our weight loss program and nutraceutical therapies. Today, he reminds us all what urologists actually do, including the surgical training they receive. He also gives us an overview of what an elevated PSA (prostate specific antigen) result means, why you might not necessarily want to lower it, and what supplements you could take to support prostate health. Finally, Dustin talks about Spark Wave or shockwave therapy for erectile dysfunction. At NAU Urology Specialists, our shockwave treatment is called "Spark Wave," and it uses painless, low-intensity shocks to encourage the body to regenerate blood vessels in the penis to help restore the blood flow necessary for erections. Many so-called men's health clinics offer similar-sounding services for high price tags, sometimes even with "money back guarantees;" but these programs often turn out to be ineffective at best. As Dustin reminds us, beware any "guarantees" in medicine. Instead, you should have a urologist determine whether you are a good candidate for successful shockwave or Spark Wave therapy for ED before you shell out big bucks. At our clinic, we offer 6 Spark Wave treatments for $2,000, and we won't recommend this treatment if you are unlikely to benefit from it. If you or a loved one are experiencing ED symptoms, have questions about your prostate health or PSA results, or would like to find out more about the Armor Men's Health program, please give us a call today!
 
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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.

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Phone: (512) 238-0762

Email: Armormenshealth@gmail.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:09

Welcome back to the Armor Men's Health Hour with Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee.

Donna Lee 0:15

Welcome to the Armor Men's Health Hour. This is Donna Lee. Dr. Mistry stepped away for a moment, so we brought in our super amazing, super handsome, super funny, super talented, Dustin Fontenot.

Dustin Fontenot 0:26

Hello.

Donna Lee 0:26

Hello, Dustin. How are you today?

Dustin Fontenot 0:28

Wonderful.

Donna Lee 0:29

Hey, your name is awesome. And you know how our patients mispronounce it sometimes?

Dustin Fontenot 0:33

Yes.

Donna Lee 0:33

I think we've talked about this before, but my favorite one was,"Oh yeah, I'm a patient of Dustin Fontenot." I love that.

Dustin Fontenot 0:43

It's a good one.

Donna Lee 0:43

It's appropriate for what we do. So how's your day going?

Dustin Fontenot 0:45

It's going great.

Donna Lee 0:46

Good. You are going to talk with us about a couple of things, but I had some shout outs to give right quickly. The first one is our new friend. Steve. He's been listening to our show for a while, so hello to Steve.

Dustin Fontenot 0:56

Hi, Steve.

Donna Lee 0:56

And another friend is Matt. So, hi, Matt.

Dustin Fontenot 0:59

Hi, Matt. Thanks for listening.

Donna Lee 1:00

Matt perplexed me. I didn't realize is he thinks, he thought that urologists only do vasectomies, that they all, that's all they do, because that was his only experience, I suppose, with urologists. So he's asking me what I do and where I work and all this stuff. So I thought that'd be a good topic to start this podcast, this particular segment, and letting the newer listen listeners on KLBJ know, what does a urologist do just in general terms? What do you treat throughout the week? Everything--that was a broad range there, but...

Dustin Fontenot 1:26

Yeah. So another, another common thing we hear is,"So you guys treat women too?"

Donna Lee 1:31

Right? About 40% of our patients are women.

Dustin Fontenot 1:34

Yeah. It's like, you know, they have urological systems as well.

Donna Lee 1:38

They have body parts, too, in the middle.

Dustin Fontenot 1:40

So urology in general--so the way I explain it is anything to do with the urinary system. So kidneys, bladder, middle parts, external genitalia. But it also, a lot of people don't realize that urology are generally surgeons as well. So a lot of the practice is kind of divided up between an office work and then as well as surgery. So yes, vasectomies are one thing...

Donna Lee 2:04

One of a hundred things.

Dustin Fontenot 2:04

Out of many, many things. Of anything that can ail you in the form of your kidneys, your bladder, your urinary system, can't pee, pee too much, your penis is going to fall off, it hurts, testicles hurt...

Donna Lee 2:16

Or vagina.

Dustin Fontenot 2:16

...or vagina. Well, part of the vagina.

Donna Lee 2:20

Some parts of the vagina. Don't come to us with all the vagina problems. You got an OB-GYN for that, ladies.

Dustin Fontenot 2:23

That's right.

Donna Lee 2:23

So yeah, so I thought that was really interesting, because I hadn't really thought about that. Dustin treats a ton of men's wellness, and hormones, and he heads up our department, the Armor Men's Health program that we have, which is why we named this amazing podcast the Armor Men's Health Hour. Thought I'd throw a question to you real quick from a patient, a new patient, a new listener. And he said,"Do you recommend any supplements and or foods or beverages to consume to lower your PSA naturally? Additionally, I heard you mentioned a supplement that you recommend for prostate health on your show back in June." He'd like for me to email him the information, so I'm going to send him this podcast, but, and then he said,"And any others that you recommend overall good prostate health."

Dustin Fontenot 3:01

All right. Well, I'll try to simplify that question.

Donna Lee 3:05

It's compact.

Dustin Fontenot 3:05

With regards to the PSA--for those that don't know, the PSA is a, stands for prostate specific antigen. And so it's, it's a blood test marker that we use to screen for prostate cancer. It's a protein that's being measured in the blood. So the question about, was there anything naturally I can do to lower it? So a high PSA is not really anything to worry about. It's a screening test. So if it's high, then that means that we need to look further into it to make sure that it's not high because you have cancer. It can be high because a lot of things. It can be high just because you have a larger prostate than normal, or you have some general inflammation and things like that. But if the PSA is high, you kind of don't want to artificially lower it because we want to know it's high so we can evaluate it and make sure that it's not high because you don't have cancer.

Donna Lee 3:43

Oh, good point.

Dustin Fontenot 3:45

If we've ruled that out and your PSA is still elevated, then there's really no reason to try to reduce it. Your PSA could be a hundred, but as long as you don't have cancer, then we don't really care. It's not going to make you feel bad. It's not gonna make you feel any different.

Donna Lee 3:57

It's not going to make you feel down. Oh, what's the normal range again for people when they get...?

Dustin Fontenot 4:01

Well, that's a little bit more complicated because it's kind of age-related, but in general, they, the cutoff is at four. So you want, I want it to look for, but then there's issues with PSA velocity, so how much it changes over time and then PSA density, which is your PSA value compared to the volume, actual size of your prostate, too. So it's kind of a loaded question and there's more, a little bit more to it. I definitely would tell the listener to discuss that with his urologist.

Donna Lee 4:24

Or even start with his primary care.

Dustin Fontenot 4:25

Yeah. But a lot of patients kind of confuse PSA and enlarged prostate and BPH and they think it's sort of all related. And so that's something we always try to do is make sure we understand that the two can be separated. And then the other part of that question is about the supplement. So in general, you'll find that most prostate supplements will contain really two ingredients and that saw palmetto and stinging nettle root.

Donna Lee 4:45

What was that?

Dustin Fontenot 4:45

Saw palmetto and stinging nettle root.

Donna Lee 4:49

Stinging nettle root.

Dustin Fontenot 4:51

Yeah. And those, as long as you get a good quality one, then they should work fairly well for mild prostate symptoms. The, the...otherwise, I mean, that that's really it. I mean, there, there's not really too much else that you can do. Generalized inflammation, so we've, I'm sure you guys have probably talked about that on the podcast before, but supplements like curcumin and things like that can help with just overall general inflammation in the body, which can help with decrease inflammation in the prostate as well.

Donna Lee 5:26

I know, see curcumin a lot in the office. Okay. Well that was good. I'll get that patient or listener the podcast for sure. I wanted to talk briefly, too, about Spark Wave. We have a lot of competition just on this radio program. It's called different names for different companies. Ours is Spark Wave. It's, it's something that you had seen a ton of patients for. So I thought you could tell us what it is from your perspective as a provider, what your patients are experiencing, how many treatments, all that fun stuff.

Dustin Fontenot 5:55

Yeah. So you're right. There's lot of noise out there. It seems like everybody's trying to somehow shock your penis into, back to its younger days.

Donna Lee 6:03

But it doesn't hurt.

Dustin Fontenot 6:05

No, it doesn't hurt. So shockwave therapy, it's low intensity shockwave therapy. This technology has been around for a long time using mostly in orthopedic injuries. Any places that have not great blood flow cause blood flow is what brings all the healing properties to the area to heal. It's done, our protocol, we do it in six sessions. They're done about one week apart. Each one takes about 10 minutes. It's painless. You don't feel anything. That, the idea behind it is that we're stimulating the penis to kind of produce new blood vessels, new vasculature, and really just improve blood flow. What makes, so not every patient is a great candidate for it.

Donna Lee 6:49

Right. And that's where the confusing messages, because you hear the commercial and you think you're a candidate just because you might have a little ED, but it might not work for you.

Dustin Fontenot 6:58

Yeah. Yeah. A little ED and a little money, you're a candidate, essentially. So, is what...

Donna Lee 7:02

I know. I got a letter from a patient who said he spent$5,000 on shockwave treatments at other facilities before seeing a urologist, and he's super upset about it. And then when he came to us, we let him know that probably wasn't the route he should have taken, you know, from a medical perspective. So now he's even more upset. So trying to help him out there.

Dustin Fontenot 7:20

Yeah. So determining if you're a good candidate, I think is really important, cause not all patients are. And you just have to be really leery. I mean, we we've had the same thing. I've had patients come in and, and, and that have gone other places,[inaudible] and I'm just like shaking my head. I'm like,"You didn't even...? I could have saved you a lot of money." But, yeah. And you have to be careful, too. Patients have come back and said that,"Oh, they offered a guarantee, your money back." I mean, first of all, there's no guarantees in medicine for anything. So if anybody in medicine ever for the rest of your life guarantees something, they are full of, you know what I mean? It's, it's, it's, it's a total sales-y, gimmicky thing. And what they're doing is they're doing these Doppler ultrasounds, which can be completely manipulated. And, and so they're showing your, your blood flow baseline, they're doing the treatments and then they bring you back in and they show you the so-called improvement in blood flow. But even if your erections didn't get better...

Donna Lee 8:25

They're going to show you blood flow got better?

Dustin Fontenot 8:26

As long as you show that your blood flows better, then that's their guarantee, they say.

Donna Lee 8:30

That's their marker?

Dustin Fontenot 8:30

Yeah, that, and then it worked well.

Donna Lee 8:33

What?

Dustin Fontenot 8:33

"Yeah. But okay. But my reactions didn't get better.""Yeah. But look, see here on this little screen that you have no idea what you're looking at, but we can show you. See? Yeah. Your number has improved a little bit. So it worked. So we're not going to give you your money back."

Donna Lee 8:45

Oh no, stop it. Oh, is that how that works? I was wondering. Oh.

Dustin Fontenot 8:49

So, you just have to be really careful. I mean, we don't, we don't do business like that, obviously. I mean...

Donna Lee 8:54

We don't have a thing to show you like that.

Dustin Fontenot 8:56

No, I mean, it's really...

Donna Lee 8:57

A blood flow thing-a-ma-jig.

Dustin Fontenot 8:57

...it's kind of ridiculous. So...

Donna Lee 9:00

Well that's fascinating.

Dustin Fontenot 9:00

But, but the therapy is real and the therapy works. I mean, you know, for the right patient. I mean, I think we're looking at probably 75% to 85%, you know, success and improvement.

Donna Lee 9:14

Yeah, that's huge.

Dustin Fontenot 9:14

But I think, you know, so if you're interested, you got to talk to somebody, make sure you're a good candidate for it before you open your wallet, that would be my recommendation.

Donna Lee 9:25

And the pricing, we're very transparent about the pricing. It's$2,000.

Dustin Fontenot 9:28

$2,000.

Donna Lee 9:29

For six treatments.

Dustin Fontenot 9:30

For the six sessions, yeah.

Donna Lee 9:31

Yep. So, cause you get the sort of get the last one free?

Dustin Fontenot 9:33

Yeah, something like that.

Donna Lee 9:34

Sort, sort of a freebie. But remember, you should be a candidate for actual Spark Wave or shockwave or whatever you're looking up and researching. But yeah, we've had amazing testimonials, for sure.

Dustin Fontenot 9:46

No, it's been great.

Donna Lee 9:46

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you Dustin, for coming in. If you have more questions for Dustin or if you just want to meet Dustin in person, we can set up an office visit for you or a consultation. Our phone number is(512) 238-0762. Our email address is armormenshealth@gmail.com. You can send any of your questions. We'll answer them anonymously. And our website is armormenshealth.com. Did you know, Dustin, that we have been ranked by feed spot.com as the second best sexual podcast on the internet, the second best men's wellness podcast on the internet, and one of the top 30 prostate cancer podcasts on the internet? That's like the whole universe.

Dustin Fontenot 10:24

Who's number one?

Donna Lee 10:25

They don't, I don't care. We'll be, we'll be number one soon. Thanks, Dustin.

Dustin Fontenot 10:30

Alright.

10:30

The Armor Men's Health hour will be right back. If you have questions for Dr. Mistry, email him at armormenshealth@gmail.com.