PSA rising exponentially..

groundhogy,

My PSA history, by memory went something like this:

Starting at age 45, annual checks. Zeros for several years, then:

52-0.5
53-0.7
54-1.0
55-2.0
56-3.0

At 3.0, following rises for several years in a row, my GP sent me to a urologist, who told me (a) that my PSA was probably more like 6 because I was taking Saw Palmetto for low level BPH, and I had a biopsy. The rest, shall we say, is history.

At 61, your PSA is well within range for your age. However, having a biopsy is probably a good idea. His procedure sounds reasonable to me.

Also, you're running into the maddening part of PCa: It is almost always slow growing, so at the beginning, a few months even is rarely a problem. Either way, you're on your path for a biopsy, and please come back when you get your pathology, and we'll help you figure it out.

Take care.

Dude, there’s an exponent there.
It just might not be 2. Or maybe, its working its way to 2.

Which mathematically speaking, brings me to... cells.

There is one, then two, then four, then eight, then sixteen...,
Isnt that geometric?

What are the differences between geometric and exponential?

Is there an exponential... say 1.7... that will curve fit geometric growth?

Groundhogy, you fit right in with the other math/engineering geeks here. There are some other bits and oddities about PSA, particularly pre-treatment for PCa:

1. PSA is NOT, repeat NOT a "cancer test". There are lots of things that can cause PSA spikes in men with functional prostates. Among them: Infections. An infection can cause wild swings in PSA over short periods of time. I mean huge swings. Sex. Yep, if you had a sexual release less than 48 hours before your blood draw, your PSA could be elevated because of it. Riding a bike--including your Peloton. It irritates the prostate and can cause a spike.

2. Sampling/Lab error. Small changes over short periods of time can come from variations in sampling and testing. This is why it is important to have your PSA blood draws taken at the same place, run in the same lab, at the same time of day, with as many constants relative to what you ate last, how hydrated you are, etc.

You're right: in theory, PSA from cancer will double based on a time constant, and it's important to consider what that time constant is. There are, however, exceptions. There are some relatively rare forms that get very aggressive without expressing much PSA.

I guess, to finish the thought, is at these levels of PSA (<5 ng/dl), the rate of change is not that predictable. Your PSA is high enough, and trending well enough, to raise a flag--which is being dealt with. The rest is all about how geeky do you want to be? You don't have enough data to smooth out the fluctuations and figure out the sampling errors, much less the R squared.

Folks, just to weigh back in on exp growth:
By defn it's any fn of the form f(x) = (c) (b^x)

b, c are constants. Often b = the constant e, but any b will meet the definition.

These fns do not have inflection points. When graphing your data, it appeared to have an infl. pt. Hence, not exponential.
However, related fns. like e^(-x^2) do have infl. pts.
There is an old joke: Mathematicians contributions are often technically correct...but completely useless. Such is the case here. Good luck with the biopsy (this week or next?). That will be much more useful.

Mel

Biopsy was today.
Currently yelping every time i pee.

I would like to upload my PSA graph so you can see for yourself.
Is that possible?

groundhogy, there is a member here (Todd) who at diagnosis his PSA was over 3000, he's still kicking quite a few years later.

You're a long way from there.

You’d think the highest PSA number ever recorded would be an easy number to find.

It isn’t.

I have posted links in a reply above to linearly and exponentially fitted curves, @groundhogy

I really appreciate you taking your time with me.
You guys are like the ONLY people i have to bounce things off of.

Thanks Djin (think i understand the name)

Someone was mentioning this stuff that turns your pee orange.

41 cc prostate.
Think 40 needles.

I am already feeling better.

Hers the weird thing i want to ask people about.

Yesterday, when it was done, i could hardly urinate. As soon as it came out, i would yelp and it would close off.

But later, as the pain went down, i noticed that, amazingly, i seemed to be peeing better. As if the 40 punctures like, deflated my prostate.
It hurt, but the flow was stronger.

Then i woke up today, and now the flow is worse than before the biopsy.

Like the healing sealed up the holes and the prostate puffed up again. Lol

Any comments about this?

groundhogy, The day after my biopsy I had to pee and couldn't get much until a big clot came out..THAT hurt like you know what.

Push fluids--water especially to flush it out. Or call your Urologist--maybe especially call them. They've seen this many time.