Prostate Cancer Treatment in the 21st Century
I follow a few blogs, medical sites, and government sites that focus on prostate cancer. As an old geezer with incurable (but not untreatable) prostate cancer I am looking for hope and progress – something credible that might slow growth, shrink tumors, kill cancer cells, and let me live happily ever after. There are a lot articles and anecdotal stories that tout green tea or pomegranate juice or some drug not yet approvedas a miracle cure. It does appear that more men are living longer – that’s good.
But, there does not seem to be a cure on the horizon – guys keep dying while waiting for something to happen. Every once in a while somebody claims to be totally cured after suffering for six or sixteen years, or their macrobiotic diet shrunk their tumor to nothing, or eating flax seeds while living in clean mountain air has lowered their PSA from 842 to 1.2.
My PSA has stayed about the same for the two years I have been on hormone therapy, but all the data points to a time when the hormones will no longer slow prostate cancer cell growth. Nobody seems to know why it works for two years for some guys and 10 years for others. I’m hoping for 10 years – or more.
Answers would be nice. Even knowing the right questions would help. For now I can more or less accept my role of keeping on keeping on. Let me know if YOU have either good questions or good answers.
axman
I follow a few blogs, medical sites, and government sites that focus on prostate cancer. As an old geezer with incurable (but not untreatable) prostate cancer I am looking for hope and progress – something credible that might slow growth, shrink tumors, kill cancer cells, and let me live happily ever after. There are a lot articles and anecdotal stories that tout green tea or pomegranate juice or some drug not yet approvedas a miracle cure. It does appear that more men are living longer – that’s good.
But, there does not seem to be a cure on the horizon – guys keep dying while waiting for something to happen. Every once in a while somebody claims to be totally cured after suffering for six or sixteen years, or their macrobiotic diet shrunk their tumor to nothing, or eating flax seeds while living in clean mountain air has lowered their PSA from 842 to 1.2.
My PSA has stayed about the same for the two years I have been on hormone therapy, but all the data points to a time when the hormones will no longer slow prostate cancer cell growth. Nobody seems to know why it works for two years for some guys and 10 years for others. I’m hoping for 10 years – or more.
Answers would be nice. Even knowing the right questions would help. For now I can more or less accept my role of keeping on keeping on. Let me know if YOU have either good questions or good answers.
axman
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