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Re: I haven't heard of my situation too many times before
G’day David,
I’ve certainly read about men with a low PSA and metastasized disease. This is rare, but there is no doubt that it happens – we have two members who had low PSA scores but T4 staging – regular contributor STEVE B and RICHARD JOHNSEN.
The only other case I personally know of was a man in the Support Group I ran in Cape Town. He had continuous, and increasing, pain in his hip and back joints for some months but was unable to find a cause. Someone suggested PCa, but his PSA was only marginally raised and his doc rejected the idea of a biopsy, but reluctantly agreed to a bone scan, where the metastasized disease was discovered. He went right into triple ADT (Androgen Deprivation Therapy) which knocked the PSA right down and stopped coming to the Support Group because he had formed a Rock Band – something he had always wanted to do! Last we heard from him – he used to come to our Christmas parties – was about three years later when he had some regular gigs. Truly there is a life after prostate cancer.
Re: I haven't heard of my situation too many times before
David;
First off don't worry. It may not be bone mets. Did you have pain before or were you ever injured in these areas?
Bone scans will pick up any area of growth and if you had a recent injury that could be the case. Bone scans are also in general poor in picking up bone mets but they are better than nothing. My mets light up like a christmas tree so there was no real question about what they were.
Have your Doc check your PAP as that will also increase during active mets to the bone.
My psa was low 9 but I had a gleason 9 with 90% involvement.
Re: Re: I haven't heard of my situation too many times before
Steve: Thanx for the reply. You probably don't remember me but I wrote to you a couple of months ago checking to see how things were going.
My inital staging bone scan in April showed the s/i joint hot but it was determined that it was arthritic change at that point. My inital bone scan was at a different location than the recent one and of course they weren't compared to each other. My true concern is the rib, I haven't had any trauma that I know of and it didn't show on the inital scan so it is something new. To confuse things even more, I had the shot of lupron(3 month) in late April and it would seem unlikely that a new bone met would appear while the lupron was working.
Once again this damn diseaese tries to take control.
I read your updates as they come in and its obvious that you're a fighter. Keep it up! I'm praying for you.
Re: Re: Re: I haven't heard of my situation too many times before
Dave;
I do remember your email. Thanks. If the rib is new then it may be a met to your bone. But remember this is also manageable. I have been on Zometa for almost 2 years and even though most of the mets have been reduced sometimes a new one will pop up. This isa fu%$ing disease and i hate it. Too many men are being stricken with it and have to suffer the for the rest of their lives.
If you go here there is an excellent discussion by Dr. Strum:
http://www.prostate-cancer.org/education/boneintg/Strum_BoneIntegrityNatlHist.html
Also go here:
http://www.prostate-cancer.org/education/education.html
for some excellent resources. Probably some of the best information on the web.
Me thinks you may wish to find a new doc as this one doesn't seem to be too with it (just my opinion).
Re: I haven't heard of my situation too many times before
David,
I just wanted to point out that a bone scan can show areas they call suspicious but are not cancer. I'll post something from an article below, you probably already know this but I wanted to pass it on just in case. So hang in there, it may be nothing but an old injury acting up or arthritis.
OUOTE
Suspicious areas on your bone scan are called Hot Spots. Having hot spots does not necessarily mean you have cancer. They are a sign of active bone cells. So they can show up anywhere where there is repair to damaged bone going on. Hot spots can show up where you have old fractures or arthritis.
