Anxiety

I think you are under the same Mr P as most of my family and if you have read any of my old stuff you will know that in my opinion he is the best thing since sliced bread but can tend towards a tad over optimistic :-/ With a positive margin the likelihood of recurrence is higher (though not as high as with PNI) so important to monitor PSA closely

No, no-one explained about shoulder pain post op. He was too stressed out about other things I think. The shoulder pain precedes the op so I think probably another cause although it could of course have been made worse by the procedure. Thanks for the heads up.
Julie

Update.
PSA has been measured a further 3 times since last post with readings of
0.004, yay still going down
0.005, OMG it's going up, panic
<0.003, happy days or at least it should be but instead this result is obviously wrong and really it is still rising.
So on the cancer front all is good and it is looking very promising that the cancer has had it's butt kicked out of the park.
On the anxiety front we have had several steps forward and several steps back again. We will keep battling this one.
All the best everyone.
Julie

The variation is so minute that blood could be taken for PSA test 3 times in any one day and give these results. Some hospitals have dropped testing to a further decimal place because results are unreliable and only cause unnecessary concern to patients who think such small differences are significant.

Unlike Bolinge and Lynn I am a fan supersensitive but you have to accept it is just that "supersensitive! "

Your husband had a confirmed 3+4 and now has an incredibly low PSA all good news to be celebrated!  Even that small positive margin was probably killed by the trauma of the op and the very liw PSA supports that.

If it gets above 0.03 then he should take notice.  My own PSA "jumped" to 0.014 6 months after a less than 0.008. It peaked at 0.03 (I hope!) and is currently back down to 0.023. All the urologists and oncologists I have seen (because I stress too!!) have told me the same thing - stop worrying ,  start living but keep testing! !  I gave moved to annual though because PSA roulette is not fun!

The difference is you still have a prostate which will produce PSA so your comparison is completely invalid.

After prostatectomy we shouldn’t have a PSA reading, a PSA of 0.2 and rising for a post prostatectomy man is defined as biochemical recurrence. Hence all the very real angst. My PSA rose to 0.3 about a year after prostatectomy and rose quickly to 0.7 and was doubling in 1.2 months. I have since had salvage radiotherapy and am still on hormone therapy.

Men having had radiotherapy (usually combined with HT) also understandably have PSA angst. The definition of biochemical recurrence in men having had radiotherapy is 2 above the nadir. 

See below from a study on this.

Defining BCR

The definition of BCR differs depending on whether men have undergone RP or have received primary curative RT. After RP, PSA typically falls to an undetectable level, and BCR is defined as 2 consecutive PSA values higher than 0.2 ng/mL and rising [19]. After RT, PSA levels do not typically fall to zero, and BCR is defined as any PSA increase greater than or equal to 2 ng/mL higher than the PSA nadir [20]. The risk of PCa-specific mortality differs depending on whether the PSA recurrence was after RP or primary RT, and it is therefore important to interpret BCR endpoints in the context of the initial treatment [1].

Edited by member 20 Aug 2018 at 07:07  | Reason: Correcting Typo/autocorrect

Just as a matter of clarification, I rather think that Ido4 made a typo in his last post when he said "Men having radiotherapy (usually combined with RT)....." meant combined wit HT.