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Posted 7/21/2010 8:02 PM (GMT 0)
Hi all, my father just had his 2 month post treatment blood work. All -seems- to look good. He is peeing normal as of a week ago, and pain has all but gone with the help of a fentanyl patch.
Anyway, he is still on Lupron, and his latest blood work shows his testosterone and pretty much zero, and his PSA at .11.

Is this good? Keep in mind, he did not have his prostate removed. IMRT and Taxotere. He never really had a good baseline PSA as he pretty much always had catheters in by the time they were doing PSA tests. I think during all that time his PSA was at a high of about 19, and the last previous test, which was about 2/3 the way through treatment, was 2.5.

Hoping the .11 is a good sign, but my understaning is that .11 is not considered undetectable..

Thx!
Posted 7/21/2010 8:14 PM (GMT 0)
I think this sounds pretty good. IMRT doesn't usually drive the PSA to zero and the important thing to watch is its lowest value (nadir) and changes after that.
Posted 7/22/2010 12:43 AM (GMT 0)
I too think this sounds great based on his treatment and his gleason. I bet he lives many many more years.

peace and joy
Dale
Posted 7/22/2010 12:46 AM (GMT 0)
thats a great reading for still having a prostate in place
Posted 7/22/2010 12:56 AM (GMT 0)
You want to move away from the fentanyl patch as soon as possible. While they are very effective, they are almost instantly addicting. Dad won't care about much of anything while he is on them...We had a hell of a time getting a family member off Fentanyl...
Posted 7/22/2010 1:27 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks all.
Actually he's been the best he's ever been while using the fentanyl. He was getting severe pain through his penis. He was previously getting 40mg -injectable- dilaudid every four hours, and 10mg injectable dilaudid every hour (breakthru).
They got him on 200mg fentanyl patch (two patches, as they don't come that high). I think the pain has started to go away on its own as well, and the fentanyl helped get him away from the constant dilaudid. The dilaudid was really keeping him knocked out.
They took him from 200mg fentanyl to 150mg last week, and so far he is still pain free. I believe they plan to knock another 50mg off sometime in the next week or two, slowly get him off it.

Thx
Posted 7/22/2010 2:11 AM (GMT 0)
gibson, that s a lot of pain meds for sure, but glad hes under a good pain management program, that is essential in his condition.
i was on dilaudid recently after my last surgery, the stuff they put in my IV was wonderful and effective, the pill form at home wasnt even as effective to me, as say a Loratab 10-500, each person's pain is different of course.

good luck to him, he's still doing great

david
Posted 7/26/2010 6:12 PM (GMT 0)
He had an appointment with his original urologist today. Of course he left it feeling depressed, because the Uro said that while he was pleased with the .11, he explained that it wasn't as low as it could go (which I already knew), and went on to explain how it would be a bad sign if it starts to rise (again, which I knew...). So what seemed like good news was kind of quashed..... :(
Posted 7/30/2010 2:46 PM (GMT 0)
Well, a small update, apparently the nurse read the report wrong or something like that......the PSA was .21, not .11.
Hopefully that is still good, his doc still seemed happy. That reading was about 9 weeks post radiation, -hopefully- it'll continue to drop a bit..
Posted 7/30/2010 11:05 PM (GMT 0)
Gibson, My PSA never went below .32 while I was on the lupron. I am now 8 months since my last shot and 22 months post radiation. My latest PSA from a July 14 blood draw came back at 0.1. Keep your spirits up and your Dad's. He is still not that far out from the radiation and in the middle of the HT. The radiation acts slowly so give it time.

Don

 

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