Testosterone level high / rising?

Hello Able 

I don't have an answer to your question - and it looks very much like no one else has at the moment - can I suggest you try this link Ask a Nurse  and repost your question there - I would be very interested myself to know the answer.

Best wishes - Brian.

Thanks Brian, I'll give it a go. ;-)

Hi  Able.

I don't know if this is of any relevance. I know it refers to 150mg, but it also says it is not dose related. Another article says there can be an almost doubling of testosterone.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12672-015-0226-1

Hi Able - Well I know I said ask the nurses - but I didn't say to tell them -"The PC lot are thick and can't answer my question".

I do get about the Community you know and check up when we are being grassed up .

I do hope they know the answer now.

Best wishes - Brian 

Hi Ah,

Thanks for that. I can sort of follow it and if I have correctly, I think it's suggesting (Fig3) that what is being seen, eg my testosterone level being ~9 after 16 weeks is fairly typical (along with my PSA (Fig2) if you adjust the starting level)?

Millibob said:

can I suggest you try this link Ask a Nurse  and repost your question there

Hey, I was doing what I was told! ;-)

Millibob said:

Hi Able - Well I know I said ask the nurses - but I didn't say to tell them -"The PC lot are thick and can't answer my question".

That was my understanding of it as well. If I remember right your first injection failed and you are soon to have another one so you were put onto Bicalutamide in the meantime? 

Alwayshope said:

If I remember right your first injection failed

I'm not sure it failed as such as it seems my PSA was dropping, just maybe not as fast as we were hoping / expecting? And from your link, I'm not sure expecting my testosterone level to be 'unmeasurable' was guaranteed in any case?

The testosterone levels would not be expected to drop to 'Unmeasurable' in any case even with Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT). I think in the UK castration level is below 1.7. Bicalutamide at 150mg is used as a monotherapy in some circumstances and has the desired effect, the ADT being recommended when there are more aggressive features. This form of therapy was the only one available for many years apart from a prostatectomy or orchidectomy.

What I meant with the word failed is that you did not see the expected drop in testosterone from the first injection or the very rapid PSA drop. The PSA drop was more likely associated with the first course of Bicalutamide competitively blocking the binding of the cancer cells and reducing their activity. The reduction continues the longer you stay on the Bicalutamide, but once you stop therapy then the PSA would start to rise if you still have some cancer cells in the body.

Alwayshope said:

The testosterone levels would not be expected to drop to 'Unmeasurable' in any case even with Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT).

So do we think the consultant has possibly missed something here and it's a 'non-issue'?

Re the rest (and thanks for trying to explain etc), but I thought that the HT was supposed to reduce the testosterone and so starve and so shrink the cancer and the Bicalutamide was a form of damper to stop the attempted increase of testosterone (the 'flare up') because of the HT? The body trying to maintain it's 'levels' etc? <shrug>