CEA rising with No Evidence of Progression (Covid related maybe)

Hi JJRies - Was reading your post with interest and I am hoping for the best for your Dad. I do just want to give you some additional hope and comfort - my wife was stage 4 at 39 yrs old - colon tumour and then two liver mets. That was two years ago. She had surgery on both and 12 rounds of chemo. She is now in remission with, according to her doctors, a really good prognosis for the future. While every cancer is different, rest assured that Stage 4 CAN in fact go into remission. There are lots of great recovery stories out there, the problem is that many people in remission try to forget about the whole ordeal and don't end up posting anything online because they want nothing to do with the topic, but rest assured remission is possible. Different doctors and patients may have different views of what "remission" is, but still - it is possible and happens more than people think. All the best.

sgold is right, there are allot of Stage IV who are living the life. While some are on a form of chemo, others like myself, are counting up the years and doing well. 

I hope that they find that your dad had some kind of reaction to the vaccine, and that soon he will be off the harsh chemo.  

Welcome to the forum. I am happy that you found something here that gives you comfort. Stay for a while, we love new friends.

Tru

I would be suspicious of Covid's spike protein for its inflammatory character, inflammation affecting both the CEA measurement and potentially awakening the sleeping giant.  It used to be common on the boards to see people's  CEA/CA199 markers jump 2x - 3x after majorly inflammatory procedures like RF liver ablations.  Ditto patients who had major inflammation from disease; one stage IIIc had malaria and major inflammation then both CEA and the CRC took off.

Knowledge is power.  I would track both inflammatory markers for CRC and Covid, like hsCRP, ESR, NLR, ferritin and d-dimer with the CEA, CA199, LDH series  and share here. 

(NLR, Neutrophil Lymphocyte Ratio, comes from the  CBC) ditto PLR platelet lymp ratio.  Lymphocytes for CRC patients tend to already be fried by chemo and/or RT.

We used **a lot of anti-inflammatories**, natural and medical over the years for inflammation, the cancer itself, and marker measurement improvement.  e.g. IV vitamin C, concentrated fish oil, 1/4 aspirin, celecoxib, boswellia, many flavonoids 6 kinds at a time.

That spike protein is a hyper-inflammatory thug.  We had to rescue an extended family member from severe covid inflammation (cytokine storm) with oxygen and our supplies.  Our cancer nurse blew 300,000 mg of IV vitamin C through them (176 lb)  in less than 24 hours to normalize temp and spO2.  The nurse said this was 5 days faster than normal. Even four full days later, with 2 days of IV steroids too, some inflammation markers were still off the f'g charts. After the first day's 300 grams IVC,  IV vitamin C was run another two weeks at 50 - 100 grams per day.  A week after the first lood test, inflammation was way down, most normal.

Tim, some advanced stage 4 patients have been able to re-light 5FU effectiveness through daily oral Xeloda and various potent anti-inflammatories, starting with the ADAPT protocol (Xeloda + Celebrex), but often better extended with other mild generics mostly high potency nutraceuticals and chronomodulation.     

My CEA doubled today. Last scans (two weeks ago) showed no changes. I would presume I'm in the same boat as you since my Oncologist mentioned off-handedly that there were "some more things we can try," which was odd.

I have to add that, other than the rising CEA levels, I don’t feel unwell. My appetite is good, I have good sleep, continue with the various exercises (yoga, dragon boating, Forest walks, cardio exercises and stretching) and I even gained almost 4kg in weight.