Not diagnosed but a PSA blood level of 5.02

lshick said:

FS--hang loose
Fathersson,

Sorry you're here, but welcome to the family. All the guys here have been through some flavor of what you're going through. My situation was about the same as yours (age 60, PSA 4+ and rising, on Lipitor, no getting up at night). I can't comment on the doxycycline, and I'm for sure no medico.

The good news is that someone raised a flag for you early. If your first signal had been a frank symptom, you'd be in a much worse situation than you are. I'm sorry about your dad (I lost mine in 10 days from "I don't feel so hot" to in the box), but that, too, is fair warning. And you probably have plenty of time to get this sorted out the way you want. It's good that you got rid of the weed. So take a deep breath, and let it ALLLL out. Then do it again. OK, now...

A biopsy is an uncomfortable, nasty inconvenience, but nothing more. Depending on who you go to, you'll have laxatives and they'll shove a big thing up your butt, but within 36 hours, you'll wonder what the big deal was. It takes maybe 1/500th of your prostate. Some guys go through several in a year. The thing to understand about a biopsy is that it's statistical. It can overestimate, overestimate, or miss entirely your cancer. But it's the best we've got just now, in combination with PSA.

So the first thing is to get your biopsy results. They'll tell you whether you've got an aggressive cancer that's all over the place, or a middle of the road thing (what I had), or (maybe, for now) a false alarm. In most cases, you'll have lots of time to sit back and decide the right treatment (if any at all) for you.

Good luck.

tr008 said:

PSA
My situation is not really the same but I felt like commenting anyway. From what I understand,it would not be that unusual for your psa to go up that amount in a couple of weeks. My Dr. has told me that it can fluctuate that much anyway but then you add to it when you had sex in relation to when the test was taken and that rise doesn't seem alarming.

Mine was running in the same area as yours before I had my biopsy, and I think that most Dr.s would at this point be urging you to go to the next step and have the biopsy. I had my biopsy on July 20, 09 and 9 days later they told me that I had cancer. The most important factor of the biopsy seems to be the Gleason score (or rate). Interesting thing here is that even though the slides are very real and very scientific the "scoring" of them seems at least a little bit subjective. Someone (probably several Dr.s) look at the slides and "scores" them - I think of the Olympic judges but lets hope that it's better than that, and in each area they give it a number. The scores are then added up and they arrive at a final number somehow. Mine (the same slides) were read 3 times and came up with 2 @ 7, and 1 @ 9. That discrepancy between the 7 and 9 is big, but either way it showed that my cancer was pretty much throughout my prostate. Since my prostate was removed on Nov. 3, the prostate is given even more scrutinization in the lab and in my case proved the Gleason score to be spot on.

I too would urge you to have the biopsy at this point. I would make my decision on how high the Gleason rate is. My wife simply devours books and has read most of what has been written now. Much of what I have learned is what she passes on to me. The most interesting of which is in the area of diet. If my Gleason had been low enough I would have probably done nothing except watch it very closely over the next few months. Actually I just lied. The one other thing that I would have done was change my diet drastically. Cut your fat intake down to almost nothing. 15% at most. Most experts do agree that the cancer is fed by fat.

I am 64, 6', 185 lbs., so think that I'm in pretty good shape. That may be the only other outside factor. Hope that I've helped.

NM said:

Have biopsy regardless
Hi Nick here and you and I have similar numbers and my dad also died at 73 of prostate cancer. I would have a biopsy asap. Not trying to scare you but im 52 and was almost too late in my diagnosis.

If I waited a year or more I might not have caught my cancer in time. I had a 24 needle biopsy divided into 6 sections and all but 1 was cancerous.

I had davinci on Sept 3rd and no positive margins and first psa test was ok. I know im not out of the woods yet with this problem but am optimistic and praying each subsequent test shows similar results.

Again with your family history I wouldnt wait but would get a biopsy asap. I will be disagreed with here but hope you do get the biospy so at least you will have some concrete information to base a decision on.

Prayers to you.....Nick