Hi everyone, I am confused over recent symptoms and hope you can maybe help? I was fine, if a little constipated. Using such things as Fybogel and All Bran, I managed to clear the problem. However, that lead to sudden, violent diarrhoea and a bit of sickness. The sickness only lasted for the first day, but led to needing an ambulance to be called and three separate visits by out of hours medical staff. The diarrhoea lasted for nearly two weeks, when it suddenly stopped, but not without me feeling drained and worried! Just before it finished I developed what I am sure was a UTI, (intense pain while urinating and all the associated weak flow and many nightly peeing sessions). Seeing my doctor a couple of days later (last Monday), he performed a basic dipstick urine test, saying there was no need to send any away for 'proper' testing. He also performed a DRE (saying my prostate was enlarged), arranged for a PSA blood test in a fortnight and put me on some Tamsulosin Hydrochloride @ 400 mcg daily. I have had hypotension leading to occasional bouts of low blood pressure, but they said to take it anyway. This led to me suffering a side-effect of incredible weakness and a hard heartbeat, (thumping harder, but not raised in any way). This lasted for one hour on day one, then one and a half and finally three hours on the third day. Having read on a Tamsulosin and other drugs forum about other peoples experiences, I tried, like many of them do, stopping the tablets for one day. Meaning to go back on them, I stopped (my flow had already improved after the second day) and waited to see what happened. Friday morning, my flow had returned to normal and all the pain had gone by Saturday morning and not wishing to suffer the very unpleasant side-effects again for a while, thought I would see how long this 'recovery' lasts. So it is now Monday evening, I have not taken any more tablets and I haven't had a return to low flow or any other symptoms, meaning I am positive that this was just a very bad UTI. (I've had them before, but many years ago). Reading on many different informative sites, has led me to wondering whether to have the PSA test or not? One chap said it's OK, but is like opening a can of worms that cannot be easily closed, as it may lead to other, more invasive and probably dangerous tests. Just to add fuel to the fire here, my brother (12 years my senior), says he had prostate cancer at 63 and had it operated on. (I've yet to talk to him about this, to find out how he was sure that he had it etc.) I am left thinking that maybe I should have the test and see what results I get, then decide on where to go from there. Of course I am hoping that I will have a very low reading, with no further action necessary, like everyone does I'm sure. But these other sites seem to say "Ooh, you've got it in the family, bound to be cancer then matey". The information on this test though is SO frustrating, leading to false positives and false negatives etc, that no one can surely be expected to rely upon any results can they? Also the biopsy and other tests lead you to almost certainly going from being a fairly well man, to having tons of problems with incontinence and blood in urine just to begin with. I have a friend in his late 40's, who has had all this. He's had to self-catheterise for many months now and is about to have an op that will end his sex life for sure, though he says the outcome should be far better than all the problems and pain he's had in all that time. He was a lively, out and about sort of man, who is now a pale shadow of his former self. He looks more like 90 than nearly 50! So this is why I worry. If you've managed to stay the course of this waffle which I can only apologise for and with some of you having been through these problems, can I please just ask, if you were me, what would you do? Many thanks for any help you can give.