Posted 5/14/2015 3:01 PM (GMT 0)
My story is probably in one of the links above.
After initially being misdiagnosed as Oligometastatic with bone mets (oligo was true but lymph nodes not bony mets), I struggled to get the necessary 2 PSA increases at least 14 dayts apart to qualify for Provenge in conjuntion with SBRT radiation.
The first PSA was garnered the saem day as a 1.5 T MRI w. endorectal coil which can't be good for PSA. It rose from 0.03 to 0.04. Then to get to 0.05 just14 days later, I took a 26 mile bike ride and intead of avoiding bumps by getting out of the saddle, I rode though them.
It's tough to verify that Provengee as a monotherapy is working as PSA may not decrease, may even increase even tough it in theory is working both immediately and on future treatments making them more effective.
So I measured the combined results of Provenge (ended 11-3-14), SBRT (ended 10-20-14) and Zytiga (started 8-26-14 and ends after 9 months at end of this month) such that my PSA is <0.01.
The procedure itself is uneventful, the most difficult part being having a needle in each arm for 3 hours (watch a movie). Wear sweat pants with an elastic band in case nurses have to bring you a bottle to void in.
Most of the blood is immediately reinfused (in my case on Friday) but some white blood cells and stem cells are sent off site to be taught how to combat PCa, same concept as a flu shot except you are your own donor rather than a volunteer chicken.
Then on Monday the treated blood is reinfused using one needle for about an hour. That is weekend one, weekend two and four you take off, and weekends three and five same procedure. So takes one month elapsed time and you are done.
Even when I go onto IHT at end of month, in theory the Provenge is still helping my immune system but again tough to quantitatively prove.