Breakthrough for me!

[Bill in NH]

Another update: I am having an easier time with food and no pain in my prostate or pelvis at all. I would say the little pelvic discomfort I did have before I started this has subsided into no discomfort.

Mark,

From reading your posts, I get the impression that you abruptly quit taking Flomax March 12th and have been off all alpha blockers since without any lasting detrimental effect. I am correct?

I started Flomax March 14th but am considering stopping because of persistent retrograde ejaculation. My symptoms are otherwise much improved since March and now I have only mild discomfort (bladder/prostate/penis region) about 80% of the time (20% no symptoms). However, I don't know if the improvement is due to the Flomax, Prosta-Q & Algonot, pelvic stretching and relaxation exercises, warmer weather, time, or position of the stars and planets. I am wondering if you or anyone else reading this post has been where I am now and has some experience with going off Flomax or switching to Hytrin. My initial plan was to stay with the Flomax until my symptoms completely disappeared but I don't know if or when that would ever happen.

Thanks.

[webslave]

I get the impression that you abruptly quit taking Flomax March 12th and have been off all alpha blockers since without any lasting detrimental effect. I am correct?

You are. Anyone want my Hytrin and Flomax?

I am wondering if you or anyone else reading this post has been where I am now and has some experience with going off Flomax or switching to Hytrin.

I think you should switch to Hytrin (for example) if you don't like Flomax. I agree that it's difficult to tell what's helping and what's not if you are taking a lot of remedies. But I think you should continue doing what you're doing, because something is helping, and you need to get as much benefit as you can. If this condition is a result of neural windup, as speculated, then getting this nervous overstimulation and resulting feedback loop to calm down is important, and takes time. You should keep helping it along.

[Richard.N]

I think you should switch to Hytrin (for example) if you don't like Flomax.

I totally agree with this. Retrograde ejaculation is a pain and I'm not sure if it doesn't wind things up even more. My retrograde ejac varies, but when the least amount of ejaculate is released the feeling is just plain wrong.

I found Cardura (an A1 like Hytrin) to be excellent in it's desired effect but I couldn't take the sinus headache! It did however return my ejaculation to normal on the first dose.

I'm trying out Remerol at the moment (slight A1 effect) for different reasons, but when everthing has settled down I'm going to switch from Flomax to Xatral - which is like Flomax (A1a) but without the retrograde ejac.

If the Flomax is helping the most you will find out pretty quick if you stop taking it!

[Bill in NH]

Thanks for your thoughts Mark & Richard. When I meet with my urologist next Thursday, I’ll discuss with him the relative merits of starting Hytrin immediately after stopping Flomax versus waiting for awhile to see if my symptoms worsen.

However, my guess is that Flomax hasn’t been doing much for me. I had already improved considerably before I started the Flomax, and it hasn’t changed the trajectory of my improvement. I started Flomax back in March because, after much initial improvement, my flare-ups started to increase with frequency. This problem abated two weeks later when I realized I had inadvertently started drinking Rooibos tea with African Spice instead of plain Rooibos tea (packages look almost identical). To date, African spice is the only dietary element that seems to have a rapid, detrimental effect on my condition.

The only intervention that has seemed to have a rapid beneficial effect is the deep breathing relaxation technique. Unfortunately, the beneficial effect is short-lived. However, I am seriously considering a trip to Stanford to improve my relaxation skills and to find out more about myofascial release.

[Richard.N]

However, I am seriously considering a trip to Stanford to improve my relaxation skills and to find out more about myofascial release.

That stuff is really interesting. Maybe we're seeing the start of a paradigm shift?

[webslave]

Maybe we're seeing the start of a paradigm shift?

This is my feeling too. I feel we may be on the verge of the big change we've all been hoping for. And the nice thing about it is that it's a broad church, with most of the old theories somehow "right".