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Hello
Prostate cancer pain is a stabbing pain and it mostly attacks at night when you want to sleep. It is unbearable. PCa loves the bones for reasons unkown till now, it can infiltrate the bone marrow and starts replacing the red blood cells and causes anemia, then the patient will need blood transfusion, then platelets start to go down. Prostate cancer that becomes refractory behaves as such ,
Good luck
Hello Stranger
I was tryiing to give a general information so that patients get informed and start asking their oncologists questions and look for symptoms that can be alarming for intervention . I am trying to tell all of you what we did not know then and all this information is from our experience with my husband and of cource the treating oncologist at ucla cancer center . good luck to you all but always reality is harsh and if we learn to accept it we can survive longer by weathering the vicissitudes. Keep it in the back of your mind and never erase it from your memory. Trust me you will have longer survival.
Best luck
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: metastasize to bone question
Lilian,
Thanks! Everything I learn is always stored away in my mind for future reference. I did a google search and found several sites talking about it, but they always sounded like a dull deep pain rather than a stabbing pain and that's why I ask you about it. So your husband had stabbing pains instead of deep dull pains?
PCa can metastasize to almost any bone it wants. In general it follows the lymphatic system. So, pelvis is the first to get it. In more severe cases [like mine] it likes the spine. Bot any bone in the body can become infected with PCa cells. Other organs can also get infected [to use another biological term] these are most likely liver, lung and brain.
Bone mets are a very bad thing. Most people think of then as being somewhat beneign, but the real problem with bone mets is they kill off bone marrow cells. If the PCa kills enough of the bone marrow your blood counts go out of wack.
Best to all for a disease free or at least a low PSA year.
Thank you,
I have had pain in my hips which seems to be getting worse (do not know if this is caused by the weather) where I got the ADT shots. Had an MRI in Sept 08 looking at kidney function. No mention of bone problems in the original report, except for slight spine curve. This past month my left shoulder has been hurting more at the limits of motion or if I lay on it wrong. Do not remember any incident that would lead to this feeling.
Joe
Hello Stranger,
I believe you have asked the million dollar question that the doctor can't answer because he probably has never felt it. I see it two ways, if I don't take my morophine every eight hours I get dull pains across my belt line and the same thing in my femurs and right shoulder and some of my ribs. Once in awhile I'll feel some sharp pain, usually associated with a sudden movement. I can relate between the bone scans and what I am feeling. It's amazing how small it looks on an xray but how much it can hurt. ADT and radiation, casodex and Lupron and now Nilandron have been keeping me afloat since I was diagnosed Jan 27,2006. I think I had it long before it was found. They told me for years my problem was being overweight. I guess it was easier to say that than really look for the problem.
Thanks for the description of what it's like for you. I have no way of knowing what my pains are but I worry about them being PCa related. I guess I'll just have to wait and see if they get worse. Thanks again for your reply, it was very helpful.
Joe: I'm in the process of trying to determine if I have mets or not. I have two spots that show on a bone scan "consistent with bone metastisis". The only reason I haven't been started on any treatment is my PSA is undetectable <0.02. My Onco is having a hard time pulling the trigger because of false positive scans and such but I feel the pain and it seems to be getting more intense every day. I'm a little unusual because of my PSA reading, most guys have elevated PSA's to go along with the pain. If you're really concerned make your Doc. schedule a bone scan, I always feel better knowing where I stand good, bad or indifferent.
David I would not wait. A friend of mine recently died with a psa of 1.56. If you have pain and there are suspected spots, I highly recommend getting another opinion from a onco who specializes in pca. Having a shot of Zoladex or Lupron can be an immediate answer.
Lenny Hirsch
Israel out of range of the rockets
