If you read my previous post about New Year’s resolutions, you already know that this year I decided to really take care of my health. Today, here is the continuation — after the examinations. No sugar-coating. No heroism. Just a few reflections I would like to share with you.
I think the biggest challenge… was not the examinations themselves. The hardest part turned out to be going for check-ups with my own colleagues from work.
You know how it goes. A quick: “hi”, “how are you?”, “how is your wife?”, “are the kids well?”. And five minutes later: “Right, let’s examine the prostate”.
There is no point pretending — it is a certain kind of discomfort. A very human one. On the other hand, I thought to myself: if I work with the best, why should I go somewhere else? After all, many patients also feel embarrassed about showing intimate areas to a doctor or undergoing a proctological examination. The mechanism of embarrassment is similar — whether the doctor is someone you know or a complete stranger.
To my surprise, out of all the examinations, the most difficult one turned out to be… dermoscopy. I have quite a lot of skin lesions, so the examination took a while. And since it was the last examination in the whole package, another round of “getting out of my clothes” in front of a doctor I know… probably became a habit by then 😄 After some time, I simply got cold.
Fortunately — and most importantly — we managed to rule out the worst-case scenarios.
During the prostate examination I heard: “you have a cyst on the prostate”. I will not pretend — that was a very long 10 seconds in my head. Different thoughts, different visions… Those of you who have a bit of a hypochondriac in you know exactly how it works.
After a moment, I heard: “I’m sorry — you are absolutely healthy. There is nothing to pick on”. My blood pressure dropped. Seriously 😄
The proctological examination was… more interesting. The day before, I went out for a beer with Kamil — sorry, Doctor Kamil Smok 🙃 And so my resolution “not to drink alcohol for the next year” collapsed faster than I expected.
Although — honestly — a nephrologist friend jokingly reassured me that “an occasional beer” can be interpreted in different ways in the context of kidney stones. Everyone chooses the arguments that suit them 😉 But for clarity: do not treat beer as kidney stone prevention. In practice, what matters most is sensible hydration, lifestyle and medical advice.
I will not hide it — relaxing for a proctological examination in front of a friend is not easy. But we managed. And then something important hit me: embarrassment in such situations works both ways.
Another success — again, nothing to pick on.
During dermoscopy, we found 3 lesions that required excision and histopathological examination. Two turned out to be completely harmless. In the third case, the pathologist decided to perform immunohistochemistry.
For those unfamiliar with the term: immunohistochemistry is an additional, specialised method of tissue examination. It helps define the nature of cells more precisely and refine the diagnosis when standard histopathological assessment needs to be supplemented. Fortunately — here too, everything was fine.
By the way, I asked Dr Piotr Rak to remove two lesions with a laser. They did not raise any dermatological concerns, but they had simply been driving me crazy for years — I always caught them while shaving or during training.
Finally — andrology. This was the area where I felt most confident. “After all, everything down there works fine, so the hormones must be good too”.
Well… that is what I thought. Stress, poor diet, pace of life, sleep and overload can affect energy, well-being, libido and — half joking, half seriously — masculine masculinity, meaning testosterone.
I received the results, looked at them and said: “it’s fine, testosterone is within the normal range”. Only then did Doctor Kuba explain to me that laboratory ranges are not everything. Symptoms, age, repeatability of results, the whole hormonal picture and how a person actually functions every day all matter.
It turned out that it was worth looking deeper into the topic and considering treatment under the supervision of an andrologist. I know — for many people, this sounds like doping or “juicing at the gym”. But the truth is completely different.
The goal of properly conducted treatment is not to turn someone into a bodybuilder or to go beyond physiology. The goal is to improve quality of life, if there are genuine medical indications. And I must admit — after a few weeks of working on this area, the difference is really noticeable.
My resolution — fulfilled.
And how are things with you?
Best regards,
Łukasz