"Gat-Goren" - like procedure to cure BPH? My diary

Hey Neil. I am going to pray a lot and talk to my lord about blessing this for all. Good luck and thanks for doing all of this. You have taken your misfortune from the PAE and used it for possibly a direction for all of us. That is a really good thing. Thank you for sharing. 

John

I was talking to Dr K about Gat-Goren. He has talked to Neil. He is qualified to do the procedure, but there is not any accurate data that it works. That is why he does Fla. Neil will be the 1st on the Forum? Dr Vartanian is in Florida someplace? Has Neil talked to any successful patients on the forum? The doctors name sounds a lot like the K. I think there is a couple other people interested in FLA. DR K has his Trial number, but it has not showed up on the CT site yet.

One of these days we will have to play some golf.

Mike

On the Healing Well Forum, there's a guy called Frank in Florida who did exactly what Neil is doing. It took 13 months to feel any different, but apparently it worked. 

"I am 3 years out from having my ISV's embolized by a radiologist and doing well. My varicocele has not recurred and my BPH has pretty much resolved. My prostate is smaller on digital exam. I still have urgency which may be due to my mild interstitial cystitis."

I will be seeing the IRs at Columbia Uni Hospital on Monday in NYC to have the GG conversation and get scanned for varicoceles.

Hi Mike,

Dr, Vartanian is at Beaumont hospital in Detroit. He and Dr. K know each from conferences. Dr. Vartanian goes by Dr.V just like Dr. Karmanian goes by Dr. K. I guess by the time this is all over I will have the whole alphabet covered.

I do know of at least 18 men who were "cured" of their BPH by the Gat-Goren procedure but they actually had it one by Dr. Gat himself (at great cost). You can find their stories on the Healing Well forum on Gat. I have corresponded with some of them over the past 2 years and it seems to be the real deal.

Dr. Karamanian is a good friend and we have talked at length about GG. He has given it his "blessing" and said it is "excellent" to proceed.

All these procedures are experimental with risks. Dr. bagla's new approach of using smaller beads runs a greater risk of embolizing the urethra and the rectum. I wouldn't try PAE again as the risk/reward ratio is too high.

Neil

Thanks John. You are a great support. I keep you in my prayers too. It will be a wild ride!

Neil

Hi Neil, keeping you in my prayers You, like John, are a pioneer. Hoping and praying for your procedure to be a great success.

Thanks uncklefester! We are heading out tomorrow to Detroit and will see some friends there. The procedure is set for Tuesday morning at 8 am. I will be back on Thursday and will give a full report then.

Take care.

 

Had this done in the UK just as you describe. The left side took a little longer as it is more difficult but I was on my way back home 3 hrs later.

Unfortunately it appeared to have made no difference to my BPH or anything else for that matter. I have spoke to one or two people prior & after the procedure, the consensus being that scientifically it makes sense but there is no research to back up successful outcomes.Apparently Benjamin Netanyahu had it done?

Hi Neil,

 

>>Dr. bagla's new approach of using smaller beads runs a greater risk of embolizing the urethra and the rectum<<

Do you have a source for this?

Thanks.

Rich

 

My PAE did not go ahead because the artery feeding the prostate also fed my bladder & it was felt it would too much of a risk. So there are dangers which one should be aware of. A damaged bladder could be a lifelong nightmare.

Hi Peter, I have read that results from the GG method can take up to a year and continue to improve going forward. How long ago did you have the procedure?

Hey Neil,

Wishing you the best of luck and praying for a resounding success!

Looking forward to your reports.

Hi Rich,

Yes - Dr. Isaacson told me this last summer before my PAE. I had sent him some Chinese papers where they used graded beads where they first inserted small ones to get closer to the periurethral region and then packed them in with larger beads as they came out. I asked Dr. I is he would do that too but he said there was too much risk of embolizing the urethra, rectum and bladder neck regions so he use just one size.

It seems PAE is stuck between a rock and  a hard place because you went to get close to the periurethral zone where the bad hyperplasia is but then you don't want to get too close as PAE cannot distinguish between the good and the bad tissue.

Neil

Thanks Peter. Yes Netanyahu did have the GG procedure by Dr. Gat a couple of years ago but I don't know what his outcome was. I know that for it to have a chance all the collateral veins that open during the procedure as the main ISVs are sealed must also be sealed. I don't know if your IR did this but I told Dr. V I will be watching him carefully but then he told me that he controls the anasthesia!

Also other complications coul prevent GG from working like a large median lobe and other bladder neck obstructions. Also an atontic blader would keep the LUTS symtpoms there even though GG worked.

Did you have bad bilateral varicoceles before the procedure and were they at least fixed? Did your doc confirm afterwards that both sies were completely sealed?

Thanks Peter.

Neil

Thanks Ross. I will give every little detail.

No bad varicoceles, but as far as I'm aware there wee no collateral sealed. Both sides were completed successfully & was able to watch on the screen as it was being carried out - rather strange actually, as the R femoral vein is entered close to your neck so you can see that happening for real & then on the screen.

That is weird going through the neck but I guess no more weird than going through the wrist to get to the prostate like Dr. Isaacson did with my PAE. Dr. Vartanian told me he will go through the groin.

Dr. Gat writes that his procedure is superior to just sealing ISVs for the following reason (his quote):

" What we do is a treatment of bilateral varicocele by venography and sclrotherapy, occlusion of the internal spermatic veins and associated veins and associated venous bypass vertically "

The last points are key because is associated vertical bypass veins open up during the procedure and are not sealed then the pressure on the testes will remain which will continue to spray Free T onto the prostate causing BPH according to his theory. I  will try to coax Dr. V to be very meticulous about that w/o being a know-it-all lying on the table trying to direct the expert.

I knwo that guys that had Dr. Gat do their procedure that he went after every small vein that opened up and sealed them. That is not to say that more may open later on. That is why this is experiemntal for BPH but at least I will get my varicocele problem fixed.

 

You seem to have it all covered. I have always wondered about any bypass veins that might have been missed, so you need to check they are all done.

Good luck, give it a go. I will be interested in the outcome.

Ross

It almost seems that if you could do this procedure early enough, that you would never have BPH and all the other symptoms.  Have they isolated some gene or hormone in the body that is directly related to the precurser for Prostate Growth?  Where are they finding out about these Gat and Goren studies.  Apparently they are looking for the same thing any guy would want to know is what indicators can they look for in either a blood test or specimen sample that could tell them that you are going to have BPH and they can alter it before it happens.  

Mike

Hi Mike

I am not aware of anyone discussing a gene but certainly a genetic predisposition to BPH ( my father had two TURPS and my older broother had one too). But Gat and Goren claim that BPH is a direct cause of bilateral varicoceles - that men with BPH will almost certainly be found to have varicoceles. If this is true, then having the ISVs and the collateral veins sealed to stop the bathing of our prostates in free testosterone would at the very least stop the progress of BPH in its tracks at worst and at best begin a long term process of reversal.

I have an appointment in a few hours at Columbia University Hospital Interventional Radiology to be checked for varicoceles. I'll be sure to let you all know the result. If GG are correct, they will be there!

Mike - Epigenetics does play a big role in BPH. It is a major area of research. I will get you some references later. It deals with why environmental factors like prostatitis and stress  and just "holding it in" will cause the prostate cell proliferation gene to become expressed in some men and not in others. Kind of like these people who smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and live to 100 while  others get lung cancer at 50.

Also according to Gat, all men who have BPH have varicoceles ( due to the ISVs becoming incompetent) but not all men who have varicoceles have BPH. Again this gets back to the epigenetic issue.

Neil

Sorry that came out wrong. I meant to say that varicoceles appear to be causative of BPH according to GG. 

Thanks Ross

Try and find out as much as you can. This is turning into a very interesting topic.

Mike

Mike - do you have a problem addressing me directly? You ask other guys about my situation on my own thread and then you ignore my responses to your questions and direct your answers to other men - weird!

Neil

Neil

I am not on here every day and there are so many responses to so many questions, especially about what you are going through, that sometimes I just grab one and write a quick blurb and then I am gone and if they are asking key questions I refer to you.  You are the key person for this procedure and we are all concerned about your well being.  I am sorry to here that you got an UTI.  I was hoping that you would be going for your procedure today.  If you want, when you come for your procedure, just PM me and maybe we can go for a bite to eat and sit down and talk over your procedure.  As a matter of fact I will do that for your.  Where are you coming from for this procedure?  You are a Ginny Pig, just like many of us on these forums.  There are about 7 of us now on these forums that have had the FLA for BPH with Dr K and I talked to him today and he is well on his way of his Clinical Trial NCT03131544.  There are more that have had a PAE procedure because that is going on about 6 years now.  I am seeing that the urologists are fighting back with itind, urolift, and REZUM for their new minimally invasive procedures.  I can not wait until you have this procedure and can reply back to all the followers that you have about Gat-Goren.  What is really strange is that you are getting your procedure done at Blodget Hospital, which is only 8 or 10 miles from me and I traveled from SE Michigan all the way to Houston for mine.  When I went through my FLA for BPH I too had so many responders that I did not know half the people that were writing to me.  

You have started with your diary the same thing I was thinking about doing is using folders on this website to keep all the information in for each procedure.  There will be people that come on these forums that could go just to a forum that makes sense, where most of the key information that they are looking for is in primarily one location.  I do a search now on this site and there are 2 plus pages of places to search forums that pop up.  That makes people frustrated and then they drop off or just don't care.  I originally had about 10 people that I would respond back and forth with and that was easy because we were all looking for the same type of information.  Now it is a Zoo on here and I am loosing touch even with those people.  There seems to be so many new Forums and now people are getting lost from the Forums that we have been following them on.

Neil, you are very knowledgeable and people are waiting positively for your results and data.  You have a bunch of followers now and you have the information fairly well organized as you can be on an open forum website.  You are one of my key information providers, like peter, jim, john, mike and several others.  That have really put a lot of effort into providing so much good information.  My mailbox is filled with the responses I get notices from all the forums I am following.  When you put out a post and it has new information, it generates lots of new responses.  If I just happen to grab on from someone else, a lot of times it is someone that is new and then I reference them to you or any of the others that have had the procedure that they have had or going to have.  We are all curious on these forums about a serious problem that most men will have to face.  We are on this site because we are not satisfied with what our urologists have been providing to our BPH problems and Prostate Cancer problems.  The urologist is the natural line of progression from our family General Practicianer when we get to be in our 50's and beyond, that our GP recommendes us to go see.  I have been on this forum for between 3 to 4 years.  I did not make a single response the 1st 2 years on here because I found a gold mine of information here compared to any other place on the web.  Some procedures like PAE, I have been seeking information clear back when it was developed in Portugal, then went to Brazil, Austrailia and England.  All before it was in the US and now there are 2 or 3 primary IR that are doing the procedure in the US.  It was so hard finding information back in the early years because there was no place to go to get it.  Then I discovered this site and I could not believe that it existed.  Actual patients of the many procedures I was looking at all in one place from around to globe.  Just look at all the people that have come on these forums and how big each one is now in such a short period ot time.  

I can remember just back in December when John was one of the 1st people to this forum that was talking about getting FLA for BPH.  Just like you, he provided tons of positive information about that procedure and all the other procedures that he had looked into.  Him and his wife were taking vacations to travel to talk to all of these doctors for find the Holy Grail.  I got to know him pretty well because he had taken the same long road as I had done to find out exactly what procedure he was going to go with and why.  He was in a so called emergency situation, that time wise he could not wait any longer, not even to wait for Dr K to start his Clinical Trial.  When you become the lead information source for a certain procedure with a particular doctor, you get innundated with responses.  I am still referring people to him and as well to you for this procedure.  I am not trying to ignore you.  I have even talked to Dr K about this procedure even though I had the FLA done on April 6th.  He is leagally allowed to to the Gat Goren as well.  I talk to Dr K about 3 or 4 times a week.  He is the greatest and he will take the time to discuss any of these problems with you.  On top of that, we are both engineers and we talk in analytical ways about these different procedures.  He was an engineer before he went to med school.  

There are responses that you have given to me that when I get back on here, there are so many responses.  Believe me, I read almost everything you have written to me.  Look at JimJames, he is probably in 10 to 15 different forums, very knowledgeable about most and has been a huge provider of very good and technical information to the people of the forum and he has not had any of the procedures.  Now, if anyone asks questions about cathing, he is the absolute expert on any of the forums because he has tried them all personally or knows about them.

Good Luck Mike         

Hi Mike,

Thanks so much for all this background. It highlights the difficulty in developing personal relationships on this forum and being careful not to take things personally- of which I am very guilty!

I hope things work out with your FLA because that will be my next procedure if this embolization does not work out.

All the best to you.

Neil

Hi Neil I know sometimes I have a difficult time following posts on this site. On my phone I can't go to the latest post in a discussion. Macks it difficult to find new posts especially on my phone.

Ross

How did it go at Columbia University Hospital?  What new did you find out?  Did they give you any aditional new information?  Maybe you and Neil need to get together and write a report about this procedure and the science behind it.  The biggest thing that gets loss in these forums, is the information that is talked about and published on here to be forgotten or lost in all of the posts.  I wish that there could be a way that people could put responses into an organized way to be able to go back and find the information about the procedure and the person that stated it or had the procedure done.  By being on here for almost 3 years, there are topics that have been discussed over and over and somewhere, if you want to search for it, is hear, but unorganized.  This could be a procedure of the future, if it works, but there is the time factor, that people will have to keep reporting on before it is any good.  A year out is a long time to keep peoples attention.  There needs to be a Clinical Trial Study done that we can keep referring to.  That is what Dr K is doing with the FLA for BPH.  He has a study number now, but of course there will not be any data for several months due to the process that he has to go through to publish it.   

Good Luck Ross

Neil

If you look to the doctor that many of us have had, Dr K , you will be treated as unlike you have ever been treated before by a doctor.  He will talk to you as long as need to answer all of your questions.  He has even done a house call on one of our forum members.  When was the last time you saw that.  There are now about 8 to 10 of us from the forum, that have had the FLA for BPH.  He now has his practice set up that he only handles prostates and is specializing in that organ only for cancer and bph ablations.  

When you get your UTI taken care of and are scheduled back with Dr Varanian at Bloget Hospital, Whom Dr K knows, give me a call and maybe we can get together because I am only about 8 miles from there.  I sent you a PM with my information on it.  You and Ross are the point people for the Gat-Goren procedure.  There is lots of speculation about it because it is more preventative.  As they collect their data, which will take longer because some are saying that it may take up to a year to see the results.  That will be the way to go.  Maybe things work out and this will be the standard for men say after they are 30, to catch the growth before it starts to prevent it from happening.

Let me know when you are rescheduled.

Mike

Thanks Mike. Dr. K did my biopsy for me in Feb. when I had suspected prostate cancer seen on an MRI last Fall. The biopsy was negative thankfully. After that Dr. K spent the evening in his beautiful office giving me a 3D tour of prostate and explaining how he would o FLA on me. He is very unique as you say. His nurse Samantha stroked my hair and help my hand during the hour I was in the MRI machine!!

With so many guys having had FLA with DR K could you start a new thread maybe titled "FLA and DR.K" where everyone's story could be collected in one place?

Thanks Mike.

Neil