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Beginning prostate cancer treatment
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Mar 13, 2022 | Replies (52)Comment receiving replies
My Gleason score was 10 so I'm the heavy hitter so far. My treatments were done at Mayo Clinic and that was a good choice. My choice was Proton Beam Therapy. Prior to Proton treatments I started Lupron therapy. The tumor feeds on testosterone so testosterone reduction is a wise choice. Lupron reduces testosterone and thus slows tumor activity. Once that is accomplished Proton therapy begins. With minimal tumor activity Proton therapy effectivness is maximized. I had 28 treatments that were of the entire prostate as my Gleason was 10. Initially my PSA was 34, I believe. It is now 0.32. I'm feeling fine and there was no treatment discomfort. All went well. Urination difficulty is minimized with Flomax, it works well. So far, so good.
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For those of you with questions concerning the use of Lupron let me reinforce. Lupron removes the testosterone fuel source of a prostate cancer. The logic of both of the radiation oncologists that I conferred with was as follows. First we reduce the tumor fuel source. This quenches the fire. Once the "fire"/tumor is quieted aggressive tumor destruction can begin with your choice of treatment. The question being would you rather fight a bonfire or a camp fire? That decision depends on the unique situation of each of us. You should look your radiation oncologist in the face and ask him this question. "If this were your tumor what would you do and why would you do so?" The decision is then yours and yours alone. That is exactly what I did. I then had an informed decision to make.
Granted, my tumor was a grade 10 so I had little choice in the matter. It was to be as aggressive as I could obtain or run the risk of a metastisis. Let me tell all of you this. You do not want to run the risk of a metastasis. Not ever, not no how!! Last year I watched a dear friend of mine die from a metastasised tumor. It went everywhere - he had no chance. I am tumor free. After Proton treatment we had a need for verification and I underwent a C11 tracing and it came back negative. My therapies had done their job. I'm now good to go and intend to remain so. My Lupron treatment will continue for another year and I'm happy to be here to be able to do so. Best of luck to you all and I have to say that luck has little to do with it.