My first psa reading of 30

Hello mate.

Sorry that you've had to find us, but I'm glad that you have. Welcome to the forum.

I must stress that I'm not medically trained.

As far as I'm aware, PSA tests are only an indicator for prostate cancer. A high PSA level can be caused by other prostate problems including inflammation and enlargement.

Therefore, there are some cases of men with high PSA being cancer free, and other cases of men with low PSA having aggressive cancer. 

For over 3 years, my PSA was only 5, yet I had quite aggressive Gleason 9 (4+5) cancer.

However, generally, the higher the PSA the greater the likelihood of cancer.

Your MRI and biopsy will shed far more light on your condition.

People on here will support you through diagnosis and any treatment you may require.

My advice would be try not to worry. Take each procedure and set of results as they come. 

Best of luck pal.

Edited by member 09 Jul 2024 at 09:50  | Reason: Additional text

M , I was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 62 with a PSA of 7.7. At the time I was working with a guy who was getting PSA results sometimes in the region of 200, despite several biopsies they didn't find and cancer in him. That was over 10 years ago.

I would not pay too much attention to the 1,5,10 year figures, on diagnosis my consultant said If they did nothing I would still be here in 10 - 15 years.

As regards the financial aspect a crystal ball would be a great asset.

Stay positive until you have all the relevant info, I assume you don't have any previous PSA test results.

Thanks Chris 

Edited by member 09 Jul 2024 at 12:37  | Reason: Not specified

Hi Marvel,

When I was diagnosed with a PSA of 36 my GP phoned me to tell me I almost certainly had PCa. he was very blunt about it and didn’t really show much empathy. However that’s not really important, what matters is that you will now be on a pathway to diagnosis and treatment, and I can’t fault any of my treatment here in Fife. It was very swift and well organised.

Try and keep yourself busy as waiting is always the worst…avoid Dr Google if you can. I was on a curative pathway so you may well be too. Always try and keep a positive attitude, it really helps get through this and if you need support seek it out from somewhere such as Maggies.

Good luck on your journey!

Derek

My growth was 3cm as we’ll Marvel and just protruding into the Seminal Vesicles, so surgery was ruled out for me.

So, we have quite a similar diagnosis, be interesting to hear how your journey compares with mine.

Im sure treatment will start soon after your biopsy, although if surgery is an option, you might have to wait for that. I started HT treatment very soon after the MDT meeting.

Good luck with your biopsy, I found that ok, just a little discomfort as they took the samples, but the nurses were fabulous at keeping me occupied during the treatment and protecting my modesty….well, as much as they can with your legs up in stirrups and your arse open to the world 🤣🤣🤣

If it's gone into the seminal vesicles, you get better outcomes using radiotherapy, so they don't usually offer prostatectomy in this case.

Surgery is not normally offered in this case, but there are plenty of cases where it's only found to be T3b during the prostatctomy.

Marvel. I had a T3b diagnosis and the MDT suggested surgery was probably the better option. It just seems to vary with what area you are in or maybe my surgeon was very influential on the MDT. I did end up opting for the surgery, mainly because I didn't fancy the three years of HT. I was also warned that SRT was a strong possibility following surgery and that turned out to be the case. I'm not making any recommendation here either way but if you are thinking of surgery you need to find out whether the surgeon believes it can be nerve sparing. Chris

This will depend what treatment(s) are offered, how long you take to make up your mind, and how long the waiting list for that treatment is. It's not usually very urgent to start treatment, unless you have spinal mets which are immediately risking your spinal cord, so you can usually take some time to consider the options they give you.

If the only option is radiotherapy with hormone therapy, or that's what you'd already decided you want, you can start that the day you get the biopsy results, unless they want to get any other type of scan which needs to be done before starting treatment. The treatment at that stage will be hormone therapy which needs to be done for at least 3 months before they can do the radiotherapy.

You will need some time off work. For radiotherapy, this will be for a few hospital appointments so probably just half-days or less depending on traveling time. For the radiotherapy itself, this is most likely to be every weekday for 4 weeks where you'll need to be in the hospital for 30-60 mins. Many people pop out of work for this, again, depending on traveling time. If you are working, they can sometimes give you an early morning or late day slot so you pop in on the way to or from work.

Edited by member 26 Jul 2024 at 08:53  | Reason: Not specified

Hi mate.

Thanks for the update. I'm glad that you found the biopsy unproblematic. Good luck with the results.

Thanks, I'm now a bit confused,  I will double check, I have another  meeting on Thursday, so  will ask.

he definitely recommended ht and rt, and nor removing the prostrate. The CT Mri and bone  scan came back negative , I need to do some research.  Thanks for the heads up

He also mentioned  that as I have previously had a heart attack  and have 3 stents, they have to consider the risk of me be sedated for a few hours.

Just confused but I will discuss  further  on Thursday. 

Cheers 

Edited by member 11 Aug 2024 at 23:38  | Reason: Not specified

I have not seen anyone post about the fact that having the prostate removed causing a reduction of one to two inches of the penis. This is because the two cut ends of the urethra have to be reconnected. I think more men would decide on radiation treatment or brachytherapy etc. if they were told about this. The potential incontinence and impotence are of course other significant concerns.

Mt doctor did not tell me about the shortening of the penis or about the blood in the semen. I find this all reprehensible. I have not decided what treatment to have yet.

Edited by member 20 Aug 2024 at 11:44  | Reason: Not specified

Bloomin' eck! If I'd lost two inches, I'd have ended up with a vagina.

Joking apart,  this research suggest initially you may lose a cm but gradually you get back to normal.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23102441/

Edited by member 20 Aug 2024 at 15:58  | Reason: Not specified

Time seems  to stand still no results  yet from my mdt meeting,  just wanting to start treatment, noticed slight  pain in my groin not sure if it's because  I've not been doing much , it's only been  3 weeks  since the biopsy so hopefully  it's nothing  too serious.  Not sure if it's just a side effect? 

Still hopefully next week u should get and update. Fingers crossed. 

The problem is, you can never guarantee, with either surgery or RT/HT or surgery, what side effects you'll get. I did lots of research of both treatments and picked RARP because it only involved, if all went well,  just one overnight hospital stay. The thought of having 35 hospital visits in 7 weeks for RT,  I felt was too long a process for me, plus I'd have been risking the additional side effects of HT.

My younger brother had PCa 3 years earlier than me, he selected RT and HT and appears happy with his choice. I'm happy with selecting RARP.

The only thing I wish I'd given more consideration to was the chances of recurrence. I never thought it was mentioned enough during consultations. I think many blokes reckon that when they select surgery and have 'the bugger cut out' they think that's it sorted, but it often isn't. The risk of recurrence then comes into play. However the recurrence risk also applies to those on RT.

When you compare the outcomes and side effects of thousands of patients and side effects, there is very little difference between the two radical treatments. However, how each treatment affects individuals can vary enormously.

I joined this site after my surgery. In a way I'm glad I did, because excellent though it is, in my opinion, it definitely focuses and is very biased towards poor outcomes. The vast majority of posters here, have had problems, no matter what treatment they've had. This unbalanced picture can cause unnecessary concern. I suspect the vast majority of PCa patients treatments go well but we rarely hear from them.

The forum is superb for giving support and a lot of peer reviewed research can be found on here. However I think care should be taken when using personal experiences on here to make treatment decisions.

Edited by member 29 Aug 2024 at 15:04  | Reason: Typo

Hello mate.

I haven't, without the help of injections, felt stiff for years. ☹️

Joking apart, I was only on Bical for a couple of months. The only side effect I got was sore nipples but I believe your symptoms are quite common for those on HT.

Edited by member 05 Sep 2024 at 18:06  | Reason: Typo