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Thanks so much. All his doctors are so against the surgery! Cannot get anyone to agree to it! This is very valuable information.

We also went to Bo Shen but he was with the Mayo Clinic in Cleveland at the time; it was a few years ago. We went for a second opinion after the j-pouch was in for about 2 years and my husband was going to the bathroom at least 12 x day. He is down to about 7 or 8 (mostly at night), but were are use to it now.

If the LA docs continue to not agree to the surgery, we may have to start looking into your surgeons.

Thanks so much for responding.

Hey @Wife!

My father saw 3-4 urologists in Dallas and all of them had the same concerns with surgery (scar tissue his j-pouch created). They all warned of potential fecal leakage and j-pouch failure if something went wrong during surgery.

However, after doing some googling we actually came across Dr. Bo Shen and setup a meeting with him to discuss. This was around June of 2020. He was absolutely against radiation which was what the Doctors in Dallas were opting to go with, even though my dad’s PSA and grade of cancer was off the charts. Dr. Shen feared that the J-pouch would fail because of the radiation.

We ended up getting my dad’s prostatectomy done at the Mayo Clinic a year ago last week actually and everything couldn’t have gone better! I’ll copy and paste the 3 doctors we consulted before finally deciding to go with the doctor at the Mayo Clinic.

I did not have adhesions. I have been with Dr. Shen for many years. I started with him at Cleveland and followed him to NYC.  I am. In NY State about 4 hours north of the City. It was about 6 hours to Cleveland so it was a plus. My pouch surgeon was David Halleran in Syracuse.  He was not able to get my issues at the time under control. He encouraged and assisted me in getting an appt. with Shen.  After my first scope by Shen, he complimented Halleran for the good job building my pouch.  I have much faith in all the doctors imentioned.

I recently had my prostate removed in Jan of 2022 and I am 70. I got my J-Pouch in 2000 and have had very good luck with it these past 21 years. I was diagnosed with cancer nearly a year ago. I couldn't find a surgeon anywhere in the Michigan area, even though there are many J-Pouchers in the Metro-Detroit area.

I had many adhesions with several blockages over the first 5 or 6 years. So my options were going to be complicated, no matter which route I chose.


I was going to go with external beam radiation, until I saw my original J-Pouch surgeon and he said absolutely not. He said no matter what the radiation doctors tell you, they can't be as accurate as they need to be with the external beam. But, he suggested the high dose radiation method where they implant radio active seeds within your prostate, which in turn kills the prostate and the cancer. So, that seemed like a great alternative, until I went thru all of the testing and the prostate was too dense (or something) and I wouldn't be a good candidate for that.

So, back to looking for a surgeon who had experience. The radiation Doctor knew Dr Karnes and recommended hom. I took a ride and spoke with Dr. Karnes at the Mayo Clinic in MN and he said he was very familiar with J-Pouches and prostate removal. I was very comfortable with him and what he said and everyone I met there. Rochester MN is a 12 hour drive for me and I was dreading the drive home a few days after the surgery.

So, I cold called the Cleveland Clinic whis is less than 3 hours from me. They referred me to Dr. Kaouk who was also familiar with prostates and J-Pouches. I drove to the Clinic to meet with Dr Kaouk and his assistants and once again, I was very comfortable with what he said and how he was going to handle everything.


Since I would have to travel to see either Doctor, I chose the Cleveland Clinic only due to the shorter drive for me. Both Doctors seemed more than qualified and personality played no part, strictly 3 hour drive VS 12 hour drive after surgery. Dr Karnes prefers an open surgery while Dr. Kaouk uses the latest single port DaVinci robot for surgery.

The bottom line is that I am happy I went with Dr Kaouk and robotic surgery. I have a single 2" scar from the surgery, instead of a longer scar from an open type surgery. When I woke up in the recovery room was in absolutely no pain. I spent the night in the hospital and went home at 11am. I was never in any pain. The pain scale never went above a 1 or 2 - I could bend and get out of bed without problems and it never really bothered me. He used superglue on me and that began flaking off after a few days and still no pain even when I washed the incision...

So, that is my long winded prostate removal story. Please feel free to contact me if anyone has any questions...

Gary....rce789(at)yahoo.com

Last edited by grr456

Wow!! Congratulations!! I’m super happy everything worked out for you! (Praise God)!!

I forgot who we spoke with at The Cleveland Clinic, but we were super comfortable with them as well, but ended up going with Karnes. My father was definitely in pain, but after being told no one could help us and that we should consider palliative care, my father could care less about the pain since he knew he was going to live!

Congratulations again and thanks for sharing your story!

Thank you grr256 for such through response. Our direction has changed; we opted for high dose at UCLA. Our radiation therapist thinks he has a very good chance of curing the cancer with radiation. His urologists agrees.

We had a very weird turn of events though...went to get the radiation and once he was under anesthesia, they discovered a false passage in his urethrae. They aborted the procedure and we are waiting a few weeks for it to heal. In the mean time they put him on a very strong hormone to shrink the tumor  - Orgobyx. We do PSAs today and if it continues to go down, we will go and get the High Dose in May. If the false passage does not heal by then, we may opt for surgery. No one here will touch him, so it would have to be one of your doctors in the Midwest. We will cross that bridge at a later date. We are staying positive and his quality of life is fairly good.

Thanks again for all the feedback!

I am having the single port robotic prostatectomy with Dr Kaouk in about three weeks. My PSA was 14 back in September, which led to a surgeon search. In fact, I want to thank those members in this thread for helping me get to this point. You guys are very much appreciated. Having prostate cancer with a j-pouch limits our options but it can be done successfully. If you’re in the same boat, check out the single-port procedure. I’ll update this page after having mine.

Just to circle back, I had the single-port radical prostatectomy with Dr. Kaouk at Cleveland Clinic less than a week ago. I am amazed at how well I feel. I have about a three-inch incision below my navel, definitely some soreness whenever I use my abs, but not the incontinence for which I was warned. J-pouchers already have the muscle tone necessary. I have had no incontinence issues, even overnight. The foley catheter was the most annoying and most uncomfortable part of the surgery. Fortunately, the surgeon’s office had it pulled after only three days. If you’ve been diagnosed with prostate cancer and are looking at your options, consider this procedure. I can provide more info if interested.

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