Posted 8/22/2014 4:09 PM (GMT 0)
After my Dx, during the waiting period while I was deciding what to do and then while waiting for my scheduled surgery, I did try the combo of Vitamin C:K3 50 to one ratio( I think) with the VitC at about 7-8 gms per day. There were a few promising test tube, animal and 2 human studies out there om this combo. I took it for about 2 months before retesting my PSA on my own, not through my Drs.
Previous PSA history was a steady rise over the years from about 1.6 or so in my early 50s, to 2.5 for a few years, to 4 back in 2011 I think was the year, to 9.18 Oct 13, to 10.89 Nov 13 following antibiotics, then Bx and diagnosis. So pretty much a steady rise every time it was checked over the years, and a increase of 1.71(18*%) in 3 weeks.
At about 1 week before my surgery, after about 2 months of taking it, my PSA was 8.1 if mem serves, a drop of about 26%. ( which, BTW, is roughly the same amount of drop seen in some of the studies I looked at)
That seemed pretty impressive to me, but my local URO was unimpressed. His nurse seemed very impressed, but when she asked him he just said "They fluctuate". I went of to Vanderbilt to have my surgery a week later, and at the 6 week post op visit my I told my surgeon about this, and he seemed equally unimpressed.
Did it help? Was it just a fluke, and a normal fluctuation? Even though my PSA had never once done anything but increase, do PSAs normally drop 26% in two months without some sort of successful treatment? If my Docs had given me some chemotherapy or radiation, would a drop of that magnitude- rather than a further increase- in that time be considered a good sign that something was starting to work?
I have no idea. What I do know is I did not have the nerve to delay treatment to see if continuing this vitamin regime would decrease my PSA further. The next PSA I got was undetectable due to surgery. Because it did not cause me any significant side effects, I have occasionally continues the therapy post op. The human studies were of men with rapidly rising PSAs who had failed all other treatments. In one 12 week study, PSAs stopped rising but did not decrease, compared to other Vitamins( C alone, K alone) or placebo in which PSAs just kept rising. In the other higher dose study, PSAs rose slightly for a couple of weeks(just like other vitamins and placebo) and then started dropping dramatically, while controls kept rising the entire time. In this later 2 month study, they gave the dose daily for 1 week, stopped 1 week, then gave again on the 3rd week, took blood tests over 2 months.
So, what I have done is, about every 2 or 3 months, I dose for 1 week, stop for 1 week then dose for 1 week. I may be wasting my time and money, or possibly even doing harm. No real way for me to know, but it has not bothered me any yet that I can tell. But I guess in my mind that 26% PSA drop in 2 months was not a bad thing, so I still do this now and then. Maybe it is helpful, maybe not.