managing healthcare in a new town

Moving to a new town comes with a lot of tasks to get done. Not only do you have to get all of your belongings moved, but you have to make changes to your medical care facilities. So, when you get to your new home town, do you know what health care clinics you can rely on for the care of your family? Will you couple your family's healthcare with both a clinic and a PCP? This blog will give you several suggestions about how to manage the changes in your family's healthcare adaptations to ensure you receive the best possible care in your new home town.

Your Treatment Options For Prostate Cancer

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Your doctor has informed you that you have developed prostate cancer. This slow growing disease often has no symptoms, but can become a serious problem if not treated. There are several treatment options and you should understand the pros and cons of each one. Here are the typical approaches used for prostate cancer treatment and what you can expect from each.

Active Surveillance

Your doctor may use a different term, such as watchful waiting, so make sure you fully understand what they mean. This means your prostate cancer will be monitored but no treatment is started. This is an option if you have a small tumor that is not causing symptoms. This approach keeps you from experiencing the side effects of another treatment, if it's not immediately necessary. You may be monitored for years before the cancer gives any sign of growing larger or extending out to other parts of your body. One issue with this approach is that the cancer may spread between examinations, making treatment with another option more difficult.

Surgical Intervention

This option is the removal of cancerous cells in your prostate and surrounding lymph nodes. The surgery can be done through an incision in your abdomen or by using a laparoscopic procedure through a much smaller incision. The goal of the surgery is to remove all cancerous tissue and any tissues around the prostate that are likely to develop the cancer cells. If the tumor is small and contained, all of the cancer cells may be removed. This becomes difficult if the cancer has started to spread beyond your prostate into other organs. Some side effects of surgery in this area include partial incontinence (leaking of urine) and erectile dysfunction.

Radiation Treatment

Two types of radiation treatment are used against prostate cancer: external and internal.

External treatment is the use of a beam of radiation directed at the cancer from outside of the body. There are several ways this can be done, but in each case, you'll need daily radiation treatments over a period of several weeks.

Internal treatment uses small radioactive pellets inserted into the prostate to irradiate the cancer cells. The pellets stay in your prostate for several weeks. This is most effective on small tumors in men with small prostate glands. This treatment is often used along with external radiation.

Side effects of both of these prostate cancer treatment options include:

  • Diarrhea or blood in the stool.
  • Burning when urinating and urine leakage.
  • Erectile issues and potential impotency.

Chemotherapy

Medications are given by mouth or in a vein to kill actively growing cancer cells. This is the option if the cancer cells have migrated beyond your prostate into other parts of your body and a targeted treatment is no longer feasible. The treatment is given in daily sessions over several weeks. You may experience several side effects, many of which go away when the treatment is stopped. These side effects include:

  • loss of hair
  • loss of appetite
  • sores in your mouth
  • nausea and vomiting
  • decreased immune system
  • feeling of fatigue

When you speak with your doctor about these treatment options, make sure you understand how effective the treatment will be against your level of cancer, and how likely and intense the side effects will be.

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26 August 2015