There IS Life after Prostate Cancer

[veteransurvivor]

I was diagnosed at age 57, and now am 73. It has been 16 years for me with

3 surgeries,( a prostatectomy, and TWO Cryo-ablations) 38 sessions of Radiation, and several years of Lupron. If anyone has questions, just ask. I am a Cancer Advocate for a local Cancer Hospital.

[Danish-patient Moderator]

16 years! That’s extremely comforting to hear. I myself has survived for 14 years since my diagnosis at the age of 51 years. My PSA today is around 1 and I have no symptoms from the disease. The treatment behind that success is surgery in combination with various ADT, RapidArc at four occasions, Zytiga for six years, nine PSMA lutetium cycles - and just recently a switch to Rucaparip as part of the TRITON3 study.

[veteransurvivor in reply to Danish-patient]

I would be interested in seeing a chronological chart of your treatments. Alongside the dates put your PSA Values. Were you monitoring your PSA closely, and responding quickly??? At what level of change did you decide that another treatment was necessary? Did YOU keep track of POSSIBLE treatments, or did your Doctor? I am looking at the type of response necessary to survive 14 or more years. How aggressive was your rise in PSA?

Most recently, my PSA went up by 50 fold in 90 days ! (fortunately, the numbers were small, and the cancer when it went to the bone, it was in one 2 Cm. area). Twice now, I have had Cryogenic freezing of the cancer and bone...most recently about one month ago. My cancer is related to "Agent Orange".

I was in a clinical study years ago, and I wanted the researchers to find common parts of the treatment or diet of the three of us that did the best on the trials, but the study was canceled.

Items like peaches, blueberries, Metformin (taken for diabetes) might have influenced cancer growth.

[Danish-patient Moderator in reply to veteransurvivor]

I had to keep track of everything myself, because I didn´t settle for the treatments available in Denmark, but travelled all over Europe to have additional diagnostic scans and various treatments. So no doctor was really responsible for all of my treatments - I had to do that myself.

I have maintained an Excel sheet with all my diagnostics and treatment data, listed chronologically. I also have an Excel chart of my PSA values (shown below). I have had the ambition to start new/additional treatments as soon as my PSA rose above 1.0. However, it took me a whole year to convince my doctor to start Zytiga six years ago, and PSA rose to more than 3.0 while that discussion continued.

I have taken Metformin for more than 10 years, as it seems to be able to address the cancer issue as well. I also take what is called Pomi-T, which contains polyphenol antioxidants from a number of plants. How much this has helped I don´t know. But I´m confident it has helped push the balance in my favour.

[Nirman in reply to Danish-patient]

Hello so when and how you use metformin I mean what dose a day?

[Danish-patient Moderator in reply to Nirman]

Metformin is the max dose of 3000 mg every day for the last 12 years.

[Nirman in reply to Danish-patient]

Oh thank you

[veteransurvivor in reply to Danish-patient]

I took four 500 Mg Metformin pills per day,but because it started causing loose stools, I spaced it out to 1 pill at a time, then because it was affecting my blood sugar levels, I stopped taking it.

After my last Cryo treatment, my PSA is now LESS THAN 0.008.

[Danish-patient Moderator in reply to veteransurvivor]

That a fantastic - congratulations with the lowest PSA I have ever heard of!

Metformin dosages should be spread out over the day, not all taken once daily.

[veteransurvivor in reply to Danish-patient]

Original prescription was 2 pills twice a day; I switched to Extended release tablets (which helped) then changed to 1 pill four times a day. It was still affecting my blood sugar, I have diabetes, probably due to exposure to "Agent Orange" and other herbicides during the Vietnam war. I am now on Insulin.

[Danish-patient Moderator in reply to veteransurvivor]

Well, Metformin is for treating diabetes, so its only natural if your blood sugar went down. If blood sugar increased, it has been for some other reason - it is very unlikely that Metformin caused that,

[veteransurvivor in reply to Danish-patient]

The <0.008 PSA was one month, and three months after Cryo-ablation.

[veteransurvivor in reply to veteransurvivor]

I should have said that the Lupron was affecting my blood sugar ( I am not quite awake this morning). I am off Metformin, and two other meds because I am on Insulin.