I had a blood draw today and have some comments and questions.
Comment - I am the one to suggest every blood draw to monitor PSA, Testosterone , and other “numbers” that are reported from CMP results. I believe if I did not do this , I would never be asked about this . Is this odd? Or is it up to us to request this process and decide upon the interval ?
Question: here are the items that will be reported….. which ones should I be most concerned about:
Albumin
Alkaline Phosphatese
ALT (SGPT)
Anion Gap
AST(SGOT)
Bilibrium, total
Calcium
Chloride
Creatine
Glucose
Potassium
Sodium
TotalCO2
Total Protein
Urea Nitrigen
I appreciate any brief comments about any of these .
thanks to everyone on this board . I appreciate all of the information.
Live long live strong !
Written by
G9doingfine
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Adding blood cells also is usable.... + PSA of course.. My Alk/phos is out of bounds with my bone mets showing back up. It was climbing even just before PSA started climbing.
When I finished chemo, radio and stopped ADT, my oncologist and I agreed to blood tests every two months to establish a trend. After six months (3 tests) if my bloods remain within acceptable limits I will move to six monthly tests after that. This is largely my call based on advice of my medical team, my wife and socialised with the members in this forum. It really comes down to you. I don't want to be a slave to APCa. I want to get on with living and 6 or 12 month tests is my goal. Fingers crossed. 🤞😎 DD.
The main markers I watch for are 1) ultra sensitive PSA (which I request) 2) Alka Phos (above normal or a sudden spike or bump in the reading may indicate bone metastasis) 3) Testosterone level (to be sure I’m maintaining <20 level. These were the primary markers Snuffy Myers told me to follow, I continue to do so.
About 14 years ago I was in discussion with someone who was running a PCa group on the west coast. He told me that the best indication of whether someone would be around in 5 years was his albumin level. <4.0 was not good. Crazy guy - what did albumin have to do with PCa?
But, increasingly, we see that subclinical inflammation is predictive of treatment failure & mortality.
My albumin target is 4.5 or higher. I wrote about albumin 4 years ago:
Fascinating; first I’ve heard of this. There seem to be a number of studies that have looked into this issue. I have to wonder why we haven’t heard more about the predictive value of albumin.
One thing I find very confusing...most of the studies seem to reference ‘pre-surgical’ albumin values, not those during treatment. My husband had albumin values between 4.1 and 4.5 in the year prior to his PC stage 4 diagnosis. Almost immediately upon treatment (Eligard + radiation + Zytiga) his numbers dropped to 3.5-3.7 and have remained there. I’m not sure which set of numbers are predictive of longer term survival. I’m concerned that it’s the latter. Husband’s overall CBC counts are consistent with mild anemia, which as I understand it is pretty common with treatment for PC.
Husband is taking a lot of the medications/supplements that you reference to improve albumin levels, but his albumin levels remain consistently less than optimal. Are there any supplements that you have found to be especially useful in improving your albumin count?
Well, the latest blood result is now the important one. Perhaps the pre-surgical number used in studies is a convenience, but pre-treatment levels (for any type of treatment) helps identify patients who may not do well.
I was more gung-ho at the beginning & was doubling-up on all the polyphenols I could find. Nalakrats does the same & his C-Reactive Protein is zero!
Thanks, Patrick. I’d never heard of NLR before. It appears that my husband’s NLR at diagnosis almost two years ago was 2.9; it is now 4. So that’s not good. As far as I can tell from his health records, his CRP and sed rate have never been tested, nor have any of the other things that you listed. I’ll ask at his next appointment.
I’ll probably buy some of the anti inflammatory supplements that you listed in one of your articles to add to the pharmacy that he already ingests. I have no idea how you guys can keep down all these pills.
On a more positive note, my husband’s PSA is undetectable and his testosterone is < 10. His recent bone scan and CT indicate that everything is stable. The one thing that concerns me is that his alk phos keeps going up (now at 131), and I don’t know why.
Some medications (Zytiga, Xtandi, etc) can throw your liver enzymes out of whack. Pay attention to the AST and ALT numbers. Possible liver damage if not monitored.
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