Prostate cancer

U can be pinky

Positivity, clarity and honesty.... It's here as difficult with ur loved ones, I've certainly found it difficult but I'm being positive and hopefully help others in same boat, either message here orcan call me, honestly things get better after prognosis

Hi I was diagnosed 3+4 a few weeks ago following a regular blood check, age 53 and no symptoms, currently on AS but not too sure how long I can stay on this....feels too much of a risk, what made you decide to go down the brachytherapy route

Wishing you a speedy recovery

Colin

Hi cru08,

Very similar to yourself I think, no symptoms just psa teat. I haven't made a decision yet but definitely ruled out surgery as for me too much baggage as we're similar age.its scary but if u wanna talk I'd love to help as I'm in same boat as uu

Hi, just click on my profile which is hopefully self explanatory and helpful.. In a nutshell, it seemed to offer the least side effects.. 

I haven't had to make this choice, because my cancer is Gleason 9, so the answer was to kill it as quickly as possible. 

Hopefully, 37 fractions of EBRT and 3 years of hormone therapy will do that. My oncologist seems to think it will. 

However, before I got the staging I did do a lot of thinking about AS. My eldest daughter, who was a qualified midwife and helped me with a lot of research as she understood the terms, asked me how I would feel about the process of just waiting. 

After looking at it for a little while, and thinking about what it would do to me on a mental level (until now waiting has played havoc with my stress levels), I decided that it would not be my way forward, even if offered. 

It seems to me that these decisions are very personal, but that it takes careful thought and a holistic approach, not just "how do we deal with this". You probably also need to work out how the rest of the family sees it. 

How it all goes well for you.

Hello Colin (Cru08) 

It's very hard being told you can "wait".  Yes as a lower Gleason 7 (3+4 and not 4+3) there is "less risk". As folk here who know me - I am not a fan of AS (this is my opinion and not Macmillan official advice). Things to consider are:

* The mental health issues connected with "waiting".

* It's not going away is it? So you will need action at some point.

* I am aware of at least two people who went from AS to incurable.

My view is the younger you are the better you are to deal with the effects and side effects of treatment.

It's only my personal opinion but I hope this helps.

Best wishes - Brian.

Hi Colin, I was on AS for over 12 months so had all that time to do research and ask questions, treatment has mover on dramatically over the last few years and radiotherapy is so precise now as opposed to a few years ago and in my opinion the side effects are less than surgery so with being a similar age to yourself these things are important to me as I'm sure they are to you. I've the appointment Wednesday over Brachtherapy so I'll keep you posted but at the moment I'm leaning towards sbrt in 5 sessions. Good luck with your decision as its not easy and personal to each individual. 

Hi, please share what happens with us after that meeting. One question I wish I had asked is… why is SBRT becoming the standard and why have they moved away from brachytherapy, is it because brachytherapy requires more surgical skill and as such not as many surgeons are doing it… and the other would be is how far is your cancer on, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and how fast will it progress if you do nothing..  Sorry maybe that’s unfair to ask you but this is what I failed to do and wished I had, and these answers are not readily available, so whilst you have the top dog there, maybe you could add it to your list.

Hi Bluecloud1, of course I will post what I found out. As far as my diagnosis it's been close to 16 months now, it's in 1 quarter of my prostate and after the latest mri it hasn't grown any it's just my psa has risen so time for action. I think sbrt is just easier to administer as as opposed to Brachtherapy but I'll definitely ask the questions, cheers