Update!! Will also update bio with shortened version
Today we had our first Oncology appt.....so far our treatment has been first class, we can not fault the service we have had♥️
Best news......PSA has dropped to from 134 to 2.9!!!!!! Absolutely fantastic news.
Oncologist was fantastic, explained everything thoroughly, spent so much time going through all Paul's test results and history.
Today we had BP checks and ECG....all good.
Blood results - PSA 2.9, testosterone 0.9
Alk Phosphate - normal
She showed us bone scan, told us not to panic and explained everything clearly.......bone mets in spine, pelvis, right hip, several ribs, left shoulder and right femur......high volume disease.
T3NOM1b, no gleeson score as biopsies not done but Oncologist opinion is aggressive, at least 8.
No spread to lymph nodes but she did flag up he had gallstones, cysts on liver and a hernia which we chuckled about, nothing requiring treatment.
Several tiny lesions on lungs but again, no concern at this time.
Due to Paul's age and fitness, several treatment options open to him -
1. Stay on Degarelix only (he will be on this for life)
2. Take Degarelix and add either abireratone, Enzalutamide or Apalutamide
3. Triplet therapy - Degarelix, darolutamide and docetaxel.....
We have a decision to make, we are swaying towards the 2nd one, Oncologist seemed to think this was best option as it would be good to keep chemo in the toolkit for later and as quality of life is so good, this seems sensible. She also mentioned that radiotherapy will be an option if bone mets start causing pain not controlled by painkillers or there is a risk of spinal compression.
We also visited Maggies, see photo, what a special place that is♥️ .....Will be regular visitors....Paul was reluctant to go but is now considering going to the monthly group for PC
Didn't ask about prognosis today cos it doesn't really matter and who knows for sure anyway....just take each day as it comes, none of us are here forever
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If anyone has any advice or experiences with our 3 treatment options above, we would love to hear about them? All our diagnosis details are in our bio, different treatment approaches will perhaps be better for certain diagnosis etc.....but keen to hear any views? Thank you️
Evening Polly,
My husband had your option 3, they hit it hard and fast his psa was 493 but is now 0.01 so far so good, he coped with the chemo very well but developed type 2 diabetes which was a shock and hard to manage at the time.
He has kept himself very busy the whole time continuing to up grade the place we live in.
His journey is in my bio just click on the name
Sheena
Thank you Sheena, we were really keen for triplet therapy way back in the beginning, now not too sure....glad your husband is doing ok, despite the diabetes!
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Hello Polly1912,
I started triplet therapy last year. My situation was radiotherapy and HT in 2016 which worked well until, after slowly rising PSA over 2 years, I was diagnosed with recurrence in iliac lymph nodes - no symptoms.
I was given options ranging from wait and see until PSA gets to 10 through HT to hit it hard with triplet therapy and, not being one to do things by half measures, decided with the latter. I created a blog, link below, to document my own experience of the treatment which might be useful.
I hope you can make the decision that's best for Paul. Any questions and I'll do my best to answer.
All the best, Derek.
community.macmillan.org.uk/.../prostate-cancer-recurrence-triple-therapy
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