Post radiation psa levels

[Blaguy]

Nine months out from IMRT my psa results have dropped quarterly from 3.6 to 2.1 to 1.75 but recently only dropped to 1.68 a tiny amount. Apparently the prostate dying is the cause for the decreasing levels. My question is should I not be taking vitamins etc that protect myself from radiation as these could inhibit the death of my prostate which is the goal of this approach. Opinions welcome, thanks

[Tall_Allen]

Hopefully, the radiation has already inserted the hydroxyl radicals into the cancer DNA. The cancer hibernates but can't repair the damage. Vitamins are at best useless - unless you have a deficiency, there is no reason to supplement any of them. Eat food instead.

[Hidden]

I agree with Tall_Allen. There is no medical evidence of any benefits to vitamins and other supplements. That does not mean that they don't work; it does mean that no study has shone them to work. Save your money and join a gym instead.

[Blaguy in reply to Hidden]

The question really wasn’t about vitamins it was about whether I had any influence on slowing or stopping the death of the prostate gland. Hence the “etc.” And thereby thwarting the goal.

[Hidden in reply to Blaguy]

I think that the "treatment" from the radiation happens pretty quickly. Tall_Allen talks about hydroxyl radicals. I look at it as cooking the tissues. Either way, you ask an interesting question: how long does it take? I do not see any clear answers in Google searches. There is a lot about how long the treatments last, how long the side effects last but nothing clear about how long the cell death goes on. Some claim that the cancer cells go dormant rather than die. That certainly could explain why there is recurrence. The alternate explanation is that the radiation beams do not hit all the sites where the cancer is lodged.

[Blaguy in reply to Hidden]

I’m just kinda wondering if the prostate fights back because I don’t want to help it do that sort off like potassium iodide helps against thyroid cancer

[Don_1213]

Somewhere I saw a statement (Snuffy Myers?) that radiation patients should avoid anything that claims to reduce free-radicals, since that's the purpose of radiation treatment - to destroy the cancer by breaking the DNA chain in a way that isn't easy to fix, and the cells die before they can fix the DNA. So - quick answer- avoid those things. I am.

As far as how long the cancer takes to die? My radiation oncologist implied more than a month after treatment it would still be dying. Which is why PSA tests taken soon after treatment aren't very useful indicators. He felt 3 months was when PSA levels might be reasonable to look at, and it might take several years for them to reach their nadar.

[MelbourneDavid]

The time antioxidants might interfere with radiation therapy is during active radiation (the weeks of the treatment sessions for external radiation and high dose rate Brachytherapy: the 6 months after implantation of loq dose rate Brachytherapy). Months later the cell death is a result of earlier DNA damage triggering cell death when it divides. Low aggressiveness prostate cancer cells can take 2 years to divide, which is why PSA can take that long to reach its low point. (But the cells are already doomed).

There is also a "PSA bounce" that can happen (one doctor says it's an effect of radiation damage to blood vessels in the prostate) so wait for the next test - it may go down more.

[Blaguy in reply to MelbourneDavid]

Thanks good info. I have cut out antioxidants as a precaution until my psa is under 1.