How long after radical prostatectomy was your first PSA test?

My surgery was on 7/8 and the first PSA was < .1 on 9/2 less than 2 months. It was over 11 before surgery.

After salvage radiation they waited 3 months.

I understand it's hard to wait to find out whether the RP is having the desired outcome, but also, I suspect an earlier test wouldn't tell you much useful — it would be more noise than signal.

Best of luck! I get my uPSA test every three months, and I'm always a bit on edge leading up to it.

My first psa test after surgery was at 3 months. the 2nd at 6 months, and my 3rd is scheduled for 9 months.

Surgery Aug; 1st PSA test Nov.
Best wishes.

I waited about two months. I was told early results are often unreliable.

My first test after surgery was 2 mos.

If I recall correctly, the surgeon told me something like PSA has a half life of about 3 days in the blood. So keeping that in mind, you should be able to estimate where you should be at any point past the surgery.

But....
My surgeon did comment that even though the first test had a higher result than my little spreadsheet indicated, we shouldn't worry yet. So that is another source saying the first test can be a little hard to predict. As most say, trend is more important, is it going up or down? and if up, how fast?

After surgery, as I understand it the first test is mostly just giving you a baseline for the subsequent tests.

Thanks, I didn’t really think about a baseline. It makes sense as you explained it. The whole process of dealing with this takes time I am learning. 2 weeks after surgery and finally starting to gain some (little)bladder control.

Handy tip — when there's just a little leakage, sprinkle some baking soda into the inside of the crotch of your jeans and then pull them up (friction as you walk will rub it in).

The baking soda soaks up most of the urine and smell, so that you're not doing laundry every day.

File this under "Things I never imagined I'd post online someday."

Oh man, you nailed It!! This forum should be called: TMI and then some!
I don’t think I’ll get that visual of dumping a box of baking soda down my pants for the rest of the day. 😂