Count Me In! IGRT

I've been watching and reading the forum from the back row for a while now. Figured it was a bought time to get my story out there.

I have a family history of Prostate cancer, including two brothers and my father. So have been seeing a Urologist Since 2006, getting my PSA checked every six months, it always fluctuated in the high two's to low three's. I had a BX in 2008 that was negative.

Unfortunately at the begging of this year my Psa rose to a 4ish (I don't remember specific numbers) then in june My PSA broke into the 5's. Winner, Winner, time for another BX.

Results came back positive in one of twelve cores. The one core was thirteen percent contaminated.
Gleason score is 3+3=6 and tc1 located in the upper left base.

So, fast forward to today. I completed my 11th of 45 treatments. so far as many of you have reported the treatments have been very uneventful.

I have on two separate occasions woke up in the middle of the night with a dull pain in area of my rectum and also have a slight discomfort that i would compare to an internal hemorrhoid, hope that does not get much worse.

I also had the Calypso Beakins installed in prostate, I've not heard these mentioned on the forum.

So I am just counting down the days and hoping for minimum side effects.

Wecome, based on your posts, I imagine you are in the midst of primary radiation treatment. The pain and discomfort you refer to are probably from the radiation treatment. Tell your radiation oncologists about it. I have not heard of them {Calypso} but know very little about radiation. Again everything I have said is based on the ltd information given about your treatment. It implies radiation but I am not sure.

Logo, I did mention IGRT in the title. 45 Radiation Treatments as my only course of treatment.

Welcome to HW, sorry you need to be in this corner of the world.

Hemorrhoids are just one of the many gifts of IGRT. Mine were made slightly worse by the procedure - had an internal hemorrhoid before PC. The worst of the treatment SEs do die down quickly. Within a couple of months or so I was feeling good with few after effects. Be on the watch though, some of the longer term effects can take a year or so before they are noticed.

If the hemorrhoid gets worse, call the doc - there are things that can ease the discomfort.

about a month after radiation stopped I had a nasty bout of depression and sleeplessness. My PCP thought the stress of the RT on my body had just thrown things out of whack and she put me on sleeping pills for a week. That rest my sleep cycle and I got past that.

We're here most days. Keep us updated on your progress and feel free to ask questions or just vent when needed.
Hang in there,
Andrew

Hi nuclear,

I've met someone else who had Calypso radio transponders installed. All evidence is that they are as good or better than gold fiducials for tracking the prostate. As an added benefit, you get to hear the ball game while being treated Which kind of linac are they using? Hope it all goes well for you.

linac - short for linear particle accelerator.

the IMRT and IGRT systems are all based on linear particle acceleration to create the radiation stream that is sent into your body. Kind of a mini version of the ones they use in high energy physics to blast atoms apart and see how they tick. The more you know what they do, the less you want one pointed at you. ;)

There are a handful of manufactures. Varian in the one I was on. Nice futuristic machine but still not what I completely wanted. I want the Star Trek like machine where you walk into a transport system that scans your body and transports all the cancer cells into deep space. If they could make it glow, cool...

I am on the Varian machine.

I was asking the techs today about lining up based on the tattoo's and how Calypso played a role.

They said as most of you know, they line up based on the tattoo's and thats basically it. If you have the Calypso they then position a screen directly above you. The Calypso track costantly and more presicely.

Do not take my word as any thing more than what is worth, not much.