Moving from active surveillance to treatment

Hi bonessjambo 

First of all, welcome to the club that no-one really wishes to be a member of !  I'm sure that someone will be along soon with a more polished welcome.

Just in case you are not already aware, clicking on the image - typically a chair - to the left of a user name will display that user's profile, if they have updated it.  

A couple of questions: presumably your initial diagnosis was Gleason 3+3 = 6 ?  Do you know if another biopsy is part of the diagnostic plan, or are the scans already done considered sufficient ?  

Fingers crossed for a good result from those scans.  BTW, just to save other people from also googling it, I presume that FVRH is Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Scotland, but please correct me if if I'm wrong.  

Cheers, Peroni.  

Yip that’s exactly right Forth Valley Royal Hospital. To be perfectly honest I’m not sure how the Gleason score works. Was just told PSA level was rising. Think the last was either high 7.8/9 or low 8s 
Had the biopsy first done 5/6 years ago that’s when they found the cancer (think it was in the last 2 pods ) so it was very early. 

speaking to a boy in my work he went through it last year. Think it’s just procedure the scans then the new biopsy might be next. .

its just trying to get head round it all again. Keep thinks worse case scenarios. How long going to be off work for with the different treatments. Without going into to many details I drive for a living. So it’ll not be so easy if needing/feeling to go to the toilet..

They will get you sorted in the best way possible once those results come through,I Know the waiting is tough. There is every hope it has not progressed too far as they have been on your case for quite sometime, Very best wishes all of us on here are standing with you keep us up to date how you go on— David 

Hi BJ welcome! My husband’s PSA was rising for many years before they decided to act. They didn’t have the full ‘active surveillance’ programme then! The rule of thumb was to act when his PSA reached 10 ( he was in his 70s when a higher PSA is expected). Anyway, he was diagnosed as T3a N0M0 Gleason 4+3. He was treated with the intention to cure. They were not sure whether one of the two tumours was bulging against the wall or had broken through. he chose radiotherapy and hormone therapy. We feared the radiotherapy and should not have done so! The biggest problem for us was the travelling to the hospital! The hormone therapy was a bigger problem. However, not everybody reacts the same. But, as has been said here, the side effects are better than the other option of no treatment at all!

as a lot of this was happening at the tail end of Covid restrictions etc there were some advantages - free Covid tests, access to Covid antivirals etc. 

We found the hardest part was going through all the diagnostics. Once we knew what we were facing and treatment had been sorted we felt more in control. So, at this stage, I would recommend staying very much in the. ‘Here and now’ if you can. Worrying about what might or might not happen, I now see, was a waste of our energy.

please remember that prostate cancer is known to be in most cases slow growing and, caught in the early stages, curable and, in the advanced stages , eminently treatable and controllable for a long time.

i wish you all the very best!

Thanks and all true..no point in wasting good energy on something that might never happen and yip if going to get cancer this is probs the best to get as stud survival rates are very high

Good Morning bonessjambo 

And another warm welcome to the group from me, I am Brian one of Community Champions here at Macmillan and in fact I do also have Prostate Cancer.

You have had some great posts so please feel free to ask any questions you wish however trivial you will get answers.

Just thinking about you driving for a living and looking at treatment options, I would think you would have the choices of Surgery to remove, Hormone Therapy/Radiotherapy and Brachytherapy. Note the last one isn't available everywhere but it may suit because of your job. Here's a link for you:

Brachytherapy for Prostate Cancer

You can ask your team about this.

I hope the above helps.

Best wishes - Brian.

Thanks for the reply and hope all goes well with yourself on the path to getting rid of PC