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I have been a follower of YANA for almost 10 years (my husband was diagnosed in March 2004). This site has been very supportive and informative.
Here is our story. At age 59 my husband had not had a physical for about 2 1/2 years. I am a nurse and had been bugging him to go. When he did go his psa had risen from 2.7 to 4.2 His pcp advised him to see a urologist. I was working in the OR at the time and talked with one of our urologists. He agreed to see him for an exam. John's DRE was negative but given his age the DR. felt he should have a biopsy even with just a 4.2 psa. Thank goodness we did. The biopsy came back positive with a gleason of 7. We scheduled surgery All went well No lymph node involvement. Everything looked good. When the final path report came back in three days it showed clear margins but bilateral seminal vesicle involvement. Th Dr. looked stricken as he told us. He was shocked at the final report . John's first post op psa was undetectable and stayed that way for about 9 months. Then it slowly crept up to 0.2 At this point John saw a radiation oncologist and had 34 radiation treatments. Psa stayed down for about another 9 months and then began going up again. At this point we consulted a medical oncologist. John had no symptoms and all his scans were negative so we opted to just monitor the psa every three months and see the urologist and the oncologist on alternating three month intervals. His psa stayed in the 1.1 range for over 5 years. Then in June 0f 2012 it started going up in small increments. It is rising again. It has gone from 1.4 to 5.8 in the last two years. It was 3.6 in September and it is 5.8 now. John still feels good with no symptoms. We see the urologist tomorrow. I am pretty certain he will advise hormone therapy. We really don't know what to do It will be 10 years in April that he had surgery. Prognosis wasn't good at that time so I guess we beat the odds there.We wonder if it is worth the gamble to continue to postpone treatment until symptoms come up.
We did mention this to the oncologist in September and he said that wasn't the usual protocol. I know that but I need some ideas from those who have gone the hormone route. Would you do it again if you had to make that decision?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. John is my husband but he is also my best friend Thank you.
Roberta:
With a diagnosis of recurrent cancer and a PSA under 5 but rising, I initiated a form of hormone therapy (hormone light) on the recommendation of Dr."Snuffy" Myers, because in his opinion the "sooner the better" (my interpretation of his reasoning). Two oncologists I consulted prior recommended "full-blown hormone therapy when my PSA reached 10.
For full details see my online journal at http://protondon.blogspot.com/
Hope this helps. If you have any further questions please let me know.
Best wishes Don O.
Roberta:
Your posting focused on hormonal therapy. There are other options you may wish to explore, for example, you could attempt to determine the cause of the rising PSA. There are any number of scans available to us. In my case I chose the PET Choline Scan. You and your husband's Dr. may be able to determine if this or some other scan is a logical first step. My experience with the Choline scan is also documented in my journal. The value of determining the source of a rising PSA is that it can lead to a focused curative treatment option.
Don O.
Don,
We thank you for your responses.
John saw the urologist on Thursday. He was concerned in the psa rise but left it up to us as to what do do at present. I mentioned getting scans but he didn't seem to think that was of much value. He said the treatment would be the same no matter what they showed.
John did have a bone scan last July which was negative. His medical oncologist ordered that. He is much more likely to do testing so we opted to wait until our April appointment and see what the psa is. Then if it is still going up John will opt for treatment.
In the meantime I have started him back on pomegranate extract capsules. He had been drinking the juice for several years but really didn't like the taste so he started to drop off. Seems that's about the time the psa started up. Probably a coincident but who knows?
I got the extract capsules at the GNC and he is taking that and I have a jug of juice in the fridge , as well. Also trying to get back to better diet. Had begun to slack off in that area too.
Just wondering if you are on any supplements?
I have read your story on YANA and have started reading your blog.
Again, thanks for your response. If you have any other thoughts they would be welcome.
This is a great site. I met a woman from Chicago on the site about 8 years ago when her husband was diagnosed. We have become good friends and keep in touch via E-mail.
Best of luck to you.
John & Roberta
I am going to step in for a moment to try to save you some money on the GNC pomegranate extract. I buy mine from puritanspride.com where they are currently running a buy 2, get 3 free promotion. Also, I should note that this company runs sales like this almost all the time, despite the fact that they may give you the impression that it is a limited time offer.
Here is a comparison: GNC sells GNC Herbal Plus® Standardized Pomegranate 50 Capsules (item number 198411) for $13.99 (or the member price of $12.59), plus they offer a buy 1, get 1 at 50% off promotion. Puritans Pride sells 120 capsules (item number 13567) under the above listed promotion at a rate of 5 for $43.18.
As you can see, that would be a significant savings for you in that Puritans Pride’s pom extract costs just over 7 cents a pill while GNC’s cost is 19 cents a pill. It is important to note that I have checked the ingredients of both and they are exactly the same.
As a side note, you may find that while some people on the site believe in and take supplements, others will tell you that they are a total waste of money. For what it's worth, I believe that if they have been shown to POSSIBLY do some good (in, albeit, small studies), and at the same time showed no evidence of doing any harm, then why not take them.
To close, I do take three other prostate supplements which fit the criteria in the last sentence above. It may be interesting to note that I do not buy these from Puritans Pride. Instead, I get them from Amazon because they are made by Life Extension Foundation. When I made a comparison with Puritans Pride products, the LEF supplements in these three cases were superior. If you (or anybody else) is interested in what these three supplements are, you can respond with your e-mail address and I will send the information out to you.
I hope this helps. Good luck,
AlanM in the USA
P.S. I also drink 8 ounces of a drink (made by Langers) that consists of 20% pomegranate juice just in case there is something in the juice that is not in the pills.
John and Roberta:
I do not wish to second guess your urologist, so I won't.
Yes, I am on supplements as prescribed by Dr. "Snuffy" Myers.
My protocol is described in two journal entries (1) "A Miracle in the Making?" and (2) as later modified in "Hormone Lite".
I agree this is a great site. I have been helped time and time again and do my best to pass it forward.
