I got a lower PSA

VascodaGama
VascodaGama Member Posts: 3,700 Member
It is with joy that I inform my fellow survivors of the last PSA test which come as 0.02 ng/ml (testosterone at 32).
This is lower than the previous value of 0.03 in Aug 2011 (T=33). I am now at the one-year mark since the start of hormonal treatment with a successful mono blockade of Eligard 6-month shot.

This autumn my wife and I took some time to revisit Japan and the places where we lived when all this “saga” of PCa started. We went to Mount Fuji and enjoyed the scenery (autumn colours) and its volcanic waters at the spas in Hakone. I feel that the natural hot-springs have cured (or alleviated) the symptoms of the side effects from HT. No more pain in joints, hot flashes or fatigue. I feel “cleaned” and rejuvenated.
Who knows if the bathes have also had some effect in this last PSA test?

Regards to all my comrades.
VGama

My treatment progress is in these links;
http://csn.cancer.org/node/224641
http://csn.cancer.org/node/215330
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Comments

  • Beau2
    Beau2 Member Posts: 261
    Fantastic!
    Thank you for shareing the very good news. Enjoy.
  • hunter49
    hunter49 Member Posts: 247 Member
    way to go keep up the great
    way to go keep up the great news and congratulations:)
  • STC
    STC Member Posts: 24 Member
    congratulations

    congratulations
  • hopeful and optimistic
    hopeful and optimistic Member Posts: 2,346 Member
    I'm very glad to read this great news
    Bathes are a good thing,....which at the least, cuts down on stress.
  • Kongo
    Kongo Member Posts: 1,166 Member
    Hot Baths
    Vasco,

    Great news and I hope it continues well. Are the baths you're writing about those hot baths where there are monkeys nearby and sometime go into the water?

    I've heard that wine or a good martini also go well with hot baths.

    K
  • lewvino
    lewvino Member Posts: 1,010
    Congrats!
    lewvino

    Congrats!

    lewvino
  • VascodaGama
    VascodaGama Member Posts: 3,700 Member
    Kongo said:

    Hot Baths
    Vasco,

    Great news and I hope it continues well. Are the baths you're writing about those hot baths where there are monkeys nearby and sometime go into the water?

    I've heard that wine or a good martini also go well with hot baths.

    K

    Thanks
    Kongo

    The hot springs with the monkeys are located in Nagano. You may have seen something similar in the region close to the Yokosuka naval base, where I believe one of your ships anchored.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGYq61SPPO8&feature=related
    Hakone is just at the base of Mount Fuji. Wine and Martinis do fit with the outside natural spring pounds but we enjoyed Sake with “mochi” (rice cake) and mountain vegetables. Well balanced diet with no dairy or red meats. Kind of natural biotic foods.
    You would like it too.

    How are you doing? Any Symptom?
    VG
  • Kongo
    Kongo Member Posts: 1,166 Member

    Thanks
    Kongo

    The hot springs with the monkeys are located in Nagano. You may have seen something similar in the region close to the Yokosuka naval base, where I believe one of your ships anchored.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGYq61SPPO8&feature=related
    Hakone is just at the base of Mount Fuji. Wine and Martinis do fit with the outside natural spring pounds but we enjoyed Sake with “mochi” (rice cake) and mountain vegetables. Well balanced diet with no dairy or red meats. Kind of natural biotic foods.
    You would like it too.

    How are you doing? Any Symptom?
    VG

    Monkeys
    Vasco,

    You are right and thanks for refreshing my memory. I took ships into Yokosuka on many occasions and remember something about hot baths and monkeys but that was years ago and at that gentle age mochi and mountain vegetables always played backup to sake and Kirin beer.

    Thanks for asking about symptoms. None whatsoever here. I have a six month check-up early next year but so far so good. It's almost like it never happened.

    Best,

    K
  • califvader
    califvader Member Posts: 108
    way to go Vasco
    that is great news and i am sincerely happy for you.
  • mrspjd
    mrspjd Member Posts: 694 Member

    Thanks
    Kongo

    The hot springs with the monkeys are located in Nagano. You may have seen something similar in the region close to the Yokosuka naval base, where I believe one of your ships anchored.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGYq61SPPO8&feature=related
    Hakone is just at the base of Mount Fuji. Wine and Martinis do fit with the outside natural spring pounds but we enjoyed Sake with “mochi” (rice cake) and mountain vegetables. Well balanced diet with no dairy or red meats. Kind of natural biotic foods.
    You would like it too.

    How are you doing? Any Symptom?
    VG

    Vasco,
    No monkey business here....only my best wishes for your continued success and good health!!

    mrs pjd
  • BRONX52
    BRONX52 Member Posts: 156
    Vasco-----Great news !!! Way
    Vasco-----Great news !!! Way to go !! You've been through the ringer with this pc monster and deserve this good news !! May continued success keep coming your way.
  • bdhilton
    bdhilton Member Posts: 866 Member
    Great report and happy for
    Great report and happy for you-B
  • JR1949
    JR1949 Member Posts: 230
    Great News
    Great news Vasco. Congratulations, you're still a member of the Zero club.
  • janekirstine
    janekirstine Member Posts: 24 Member
    Congratulations!
    I believe the baths played a great part! You will just have to visit more places with them. Recommend Budapest and Iceland. Congratulations, J and T
  • mrspjd
    mrspjd Member Posts: 694 Member
    mrspjd said:

    Vasco,
    No monkey business here....only my best wishes for your continued success and good health!!

    mrs pjd

    Medical Tourism: new meaning?
    BTW, maybe some of that extra radiation floating around Japan from their nuclear reactor event following the great earthquake and Tsunami earlier this year had a beneficial effect on your lower PSA reading! This may give a whole new meaning to “medical tourism/sightseeing.”

    OK, OK, I’m just kidding...
  • janekirstine
    janekirstine Member Posts: 24 Member
    mrspjd said:

    Medical Tourism: new meaning?
    BTW, maybe some of that extra radiation floating around Japan from their nuclear reactor event following the great earthquake and Tsunami earlier this year had a beneficial effect on your lower PSA reading! This may give a whole new meaning to “medical tourism/sightseeing.”

    OK, OK, I’m just kidding...

    Medical Tourism
    mrspjd!

    That was genius! I am cracking up . . . that is my kind of humor. J
  • mrspjd
    mrspjd Member Posts: 694 Member

    Medical Tourism
    mrspjd!

    That was genius! I am cracking up . . . that is my kind of humor. J

    Thank you!
    Jane,

    I cannot tell you how relieved I am to read your post. I had hoped that my tongue in cheek post on Medical Tourism would be taken as humorous and that those who know my writing style and my sometimes warped sense of humor would realize that my take on “medical tourism” in Japan was in no way meant to diminish the devastation and tragic suffering of the people of Japan, their beautiful country, and the lives lost from the catastrophic events in the aftermath of the horrific earthquake & Tsunami in Japan earlier this year.

    mrs pjd
  • VascodaGama
    VascodaGama Member Posts: 3,700 Member

    Congratulations!
    I believe the baths played a great part! You will just have to visit more places with them. Recommend Budapest and Iceland. Congratulations, J and T

    “Radioactivity creates a splendid youthful joyous life”
    To all friend survivors I send my Thanks for the well wishes.

    Mrs PJD and Jane

    I cannot access how badly your joke would be taken by the Japanese people afflicted with the Fukushima radiation disaster. However, most of the general public in Japan are aware of the risks and radiation spread and talk openly on the matter. They would take your sentence as a joke too.

    Nevertheless, behind any joke there is always a valid sinicism and your “Medical Tourism” is well termed because it is real and it exists.
    Radioactivity in very low levels may create health benefits as claimed by scholars (???). The mineralization from the volcanic waters in the spas are well known in Japan and these minerals release very low levels of radiation not harmful to the human been.

    In the southern region of Japan, there is a world renewed Hot Spring at Beppu, with several ways of bathing claiming health benefits for a variety of illnesses. The local mineral rich volcanic soils are driving thousands of tourists annually to the place claiming all sorts of cures.
    Mud Bath (Doroyu) is said to be effective for high blood pressure, neuralgia and diabetes. Sand Bath (Sunayu) is effective for neuralgia, backache and stiff neck. Steam Bath (Mushiyu) is known to release fatigue by stimulating metabolism and perspiration. Hot Waterfall Shower (Takiyu) is used for massage in joint pains. Etc. Etc.

    http://farflungistan.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/best-budget-spa-trip-in-japan-beppu-sand-spa/

    Radioactivity and the Benefits is better explained in a paper written by Paul W. Frame, (Oak Ridge Associated Universities), under the title “Radioactive Curative Devices and Spas”
    Here are excerpts from the paper;

    “....In 1903, the discoverer of the electron, J.J. Thompson, wrote a letter to the journal Nature in which he described another remarkable discovery of his, the presence of radioactivity in well water. This led to the discovery by others that the waters in many of the world's most famous health springs were also radioactive. This radioactivity is due to the presence of radium emanation - what we now call radon gas - produced by the radium that is present in the ground through which the waters flow.
    Who could doubt that it must be the radioactivity that was responsible for the curative properties of the health springs? Certainly not Surgeon General Dr. George H. Torney, who wrote (ca. 1910) that "Relief may be reasonably expected at the Hot Springs in . . . various forms of gout and rheumatism, neuralgia; metallic or malarial poisoning, chronic Brights disease, gastric dyspepsia, chronic diarrhea, chronic skin lesions, etc....."
    Further details were provided by Dr. C.G. Davis, who noted in the American Journal of Clinical Medicine that "Radioactivity prevents insanity, rouses noble emotions, retards old age, and creates a splendid youthful joyous life."

    (http://www.orau.org/ptp/articlesstories/quackstory.htm)

    Let’s joke and laugh and enjoy our special moments.

    VGama

    News on Fukushima;
    http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/11/fukushima-radiation-spread-wide-dispersion-and-localized-hot-spots.ars
  • mrspjd
    mrspjd Member Posts: 694 Member

    “Radioactivity creates a splendid youthful joyous life”
    To all friend survivors I send my Thanks for the well wishes.

    Mrs PJD and Jane

    I cannot access how badly your joke would be taken by the Japanese people afflicted with the Fukushima radiation disaster. However, most of the general public in Japan are aware of the risks and radiation spread and talk openly on the matter. They would take your sentence as a joke too.

    Nevertheless, behind any joke there is always a valid sinicism and your “Medical Tourism” is well termed because it is real and it exists.
    Radioactivity in very low levels may create health benefits as claimed by scholars (???). The mineralization from the volcanic waters in the spas are well known in Japan and these minerals release very low levels of radiation not harmful to the human been.

    In the southern region of Japan, there is a world renewed Hot Spring at Beppu, with several ways of bathing claiming health benefits for a variety of illnesses. The local mineral rich volcanic soils are driving thousands of tourists annually to the place claiming all sorts of cures.
    Mud Bath (Doroyu) is said to be effective for high blood pressure, neuralgia and diabetes. Sand Bath (Sunayu) is effective for neuralgia, backache and stiff neck. Steam Bath (Mushiyu) is known to release fatigue by stimulating metabolism and perspiration. Hot Waterfall Shower (Takiyu) is used for massage in joint pains. Etc. Etc.

    http://farflungistan.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/best-budget-spa-trip-in-japan-beppu-sand-spa/

    Radioactivity and the Benefits is better explained in a paper written by Paul W. Frame, (Oak Ridge Associated Universities), under the title “Radioactive Curative Devices and Spas”
    Here are excerpts from the paper;

    “....In 1903, the discoverer of the electron, J.J. Thompson, wrote a letter to the journal Nature in which he described another remarkable discovery of his, the presence of radioactivity in well water. This led to the discovery by others that the waters in many of the world's most famous health springs were also radioactive. This radioactivity is due to the presence of radium emanation - what we now call radon gas - produced by the radium that is present in the ground through which the waters flow.
    Who could doubt that it must be the radioactivity that was responsible for the curative properties of the health springs? Certainly not Surgeon General Dr. George H. Torney, who wrote (ca. 1910) that "Relief may be reasonably expected at the Hot Springs in . . . various forms of gout and rheumatism, neuralgia; metallic or malarial poisoning, chronic Brights disease, gastric dyspepsia, chronic diarrhea, chronic skin lesions, etc....."
    Further details were provided by Dr. C.G. Davis, who noted in the American Journal of Clinical Medicine that "Radioactivity prevents insanity, rouses noble emotions, retards old age, and creates a splendid youthful joyous life."

    (http://www.orau.org/ptp/articlesstories/quackstory.htm)

    Let’s joke and laugh and enjoy our special moments.

    VGama

    News on Fukushima;
    http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/11/fukushima-radiation-spread-wide-dispersion-and-localized-hot-spots.ars

    Laughter is the best medicine
    Vasco,

    Thank you for this post and for one more perspective on the potential “benefits” of radioactivity.

    To anyone who asks: "How can you laugh about cancer (or tragedy)?" I would respectfully ask "How can you not?"

    Best wishes to all for a Happy & Healthy Holiday Season filled with Laughter and Joy!

    mrs pjd
  • dhrocks
    dhrocks Member Posts: 20
    Good News Indeed
    Always nice to hear good news from fellow members about their good PSA numbers.