Survived A Heart Attack..Now Prostate Cancer

[Bolt-O]

Oh, how time flies. I forgot to update my midyear talk with my urologist, the PSA retest came back at 4.16, which was good to to him to continue Active Surveillance. Just had the PSA tested for my scheduled followup next week , 4 this time. What I think that means nothing changes. My guess though is that at least an MRI will be needed, which is fine, but annoying as hell. I want to talk to him about genetic testing as well, to see if the very small cancer is likely to spread.

PSA is more of like a 'check engine' light to me, an MRI can find obvious tumors, but my previous MRIs showed only suspicious areas. There is something the radiologist will estimate for visible masses, called a PIRADs score, but they didn't assign one for the last two. If I get an MRI this time it will be at a UCSD Health facility vs. the VAMC, but we'll see.... probably no difference as the VA has a 3T MRI.

[Boltjolt]

Oh, how time flies. I forgot to update my midyear talk with my urologist, the PSA retest came back at 4.16, which was good to to him to continue Active Surveillance. Just had the PSA tested for my scheduled followup next week , 4 this time. What I think that means nothing changes. My guess though is that at least an MRI will be needed, which is fine, but annoying as hell. I want to talk to him about genetic testing as well, to see if the very small cancer is likely to spread.

PSA is more of like a 'check engine' light to me, an MRI can find obvious tumors, but my previous MRIs showed only suspicious areas. There is something the radiologist will estimate for visible masses, called a PIRADs score, but they didn't assign one for the last two. If I get an MRI this time it will be at a UCSD Health facility vs. the VAMC, but we'll see.... probably no difference as the VA has a 3T MRI.

Take Zinc if you dont already. Been taking it for years and my last PSA was very low.

[Bolt-O]

Not so sure about zinc. I took it for about 6 months, then the PSA popped to 8, which I had to retest to get back to 4.16 It might have been the particular lab, or some other factor. I'm also on Finasteride, which reduces the prostate size, which is supposed to lower the PSA number What is more important is the if the number is ramping higher, and so far its been flat to slightly higher for the last year. I think I would have asked for a retest if the number actually fell a lot. I'll ask the doctor about zinc though. I heard aspirin may also help as it reduces inflammation but I'm already on it.

[Boltjolt]

Not so sure about zinc. I took it for about 6 months, then the PSA popped to 8, which I had to retest to get back to 4.16 It might have been the particular lab, or some other factor. I'm also on Finasteride, which reduces the prostate size, which is supposed to lower the PSA number What is more important is the if the number is ramping higher, and so far its been flat to slightly higher for the last year. I think I would have asked for a retest if the number actually fell a lot. I'll ask the doctor about zinc though. I heard aspirin may also help as it reduces inflammation but I'm already on it.

Well, I'm no Dr but I somehow got an inflamed prostate when I was 15 which was I bit of a shock to the Dr.

I knew nothing about it or what it even was, I just knew I felt like I had to pee all the time. Long story short, I was given zinc for it, don't recall if I took anything else but It went back to normal.

Started taking it again in my twenties just because I was told to take it for that and it was good for other things and been taking one every morning since then.

To renew an insurance policy a few years ago I had blood work and on the results it tested for many things and saw my PSA was pretty low to the range it gave.

[Bolt-O]

Just a short update on my Prostate Cancer Active Surveillance. In December, I had a PSA that was not much different than the previous one done, but with that one done, my urologist changed his recommendation to treatment, pending results from a MRI and a PSA retest in February. This time, I did the MRI at UCSD at the Komen Family Outpatient Pavillion. The machine there appeared to be newer than the one at the VA, so I thought it might be able to locate any problem areas better. However the results were pretty much negative for visible tumors (if one was found, it would have gotten a grade (PI-RADS) from 1 to 5, the worst would have been a 5. Based on that and the PSA, the urologist said it probably was safe to watch a little longer, but he will get my last biopsy graded with a decipher test, which will help determine if it's still safe to not treat as the cancer is still only inside the prostate capsule, and not metastatic. Probably will update this in June.