He Who Lives in His Body Knows His Body Best
The Case of the Year is an actual patient of The Turek Clinic.
Ever feel that you know something before you actually know it? Call it premonition, intuition, hunch, instinct or just plain “gut” feeling. Powerful stuff. Especially when we combine the right brain’s “gut” with the left brain’s rationality to weigh choices and act. Not sure who said it but “vibes don’t lie.”
Out of Mind
My patient came to me from across the continent with a 20-year history of sexual symptoms that began when his first girlfriend remarked that “not much comes out” with sex. He had always felt that ejaculation felt “incomplete” or “stopped up.” He then developed occasional blood in the ejaculate, which both alarmed and embarrassed him. And to boot he starting having a dull pain with ejaculation that radiated into his pelvis and down the tip of the penis. Now sex hurts! This was the shape he was in when he found me.
Needless to say, his sex life was in shambles. Although possessing an engaging and witty personality, and despite being fit and trim with a full head of hair, he was incredibly self-conscious, felt sexually inadequate, and was depressed. Most partners questioned what was going on with him. Long-term relationships were as scarce as hen’s teeth.
As he truly believed that something was wrong with him, he kept seeking care. No venereal infections, no urinary tract issues, and no improvement with antibiotics. Only one medical finding was revealed: he had a small cyst in his prostate on ultrasound. However, the half dozen urologists whom he had seen wanted nothing to do with treating this teensy-weensy cyst. Too small, too risky and too many complications stood in the way of its treatment.
Know Thy Gut
Many psychologists believe that there are 5 gut feelings that you should pay attention to:
- Something feels wrong in my body
- I’m in danger
- I want to help
- I know how to do this
- This is right for me
And how does the gut speak? Well, through any of the following: a sense of warmth (or icy cold), the ability to breathe easier (or much harder), sharp clarity of senses, goose bumps, tingling or “fluttery sensations, and of course, a relaxed (or clenched) gut.
Moved to Act
Not comfortable with his uncomfortable body, he read my blog and called me. He said that he was either out of his mind or something was really wrong down there and he wanted my opinion. I appreciated his honesty. I saw him a week or two later and I performed another ultrasound. Sure enough, that little cyst was still there.
After I saw his semen analysis, I sat him down and told him straight away that he had ejaculatory duct obstruction as a cause of disordered and painful ejaculation. That little cyst was right where it shouldn’t be and I wagered that it was the cause of the battery of symptoms had been living with for years. He almost cried.
I took him to surgery, confirmed then and there that the cyst was blocking things, and unroofed it. No sweat. All gone. A more grateful patient I have never known. After surgery, something else happened: his countenance had changed. He now exuded a palpable inner peace and a powerful, quiet confidence. Already for round two of life. It was lovely. In the words of Aldous Huxley: “Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”
