02-06-2013, 01:05 AM
I recently visited our nurse practitioner for for a review of the results of a battery of tests she had ordered. Most of the results were satisfactory or better, but then she said that the result of my PSA test was good. This seemed odd to me since that test has always previously returned scores of 4.5 plus or minus 15%; marginal but acceptable for someone of my age with an enlarged prostate (BPH) and no other evidence of prostate cancer. This time she said my score was 0.2 which means that there was essentially no ‘expression’ of PSA (prostate specific antigen) into the bloodstream. Expression occurs when the prostate is ‘unhappy’ for some reason, be it BPH, infection, injury or cancer. I said that surely there must be a mistake, at which point she checked my file and found that the score from the previous test was 5.1. She said that if it was a rogue score it would sort itself out at the next test, and there things were left.
On the internet the only circumstance reported as producing such an extreme reduction in score was removal of the prostate and I still have mine. The only possibly relevant factor that has changed since the previous PSA test is that I am now taking PM, in quite high doses, which is reported as being prostate friendly (in fact some men use that as an excuse for taking it) and also contains a phytoestrogen which might be strong enough to suppress PSA expression. I have experienced some relief of my BPH symptoms in the last year over and above that produced by alpha blockers, but had attributed that to SP (which I was still taking at the time of the test). It is one of the reported virtues of SP that it does not skew PSA tests, unlike Proscar and its ilk which do reduce PSA expression but which I have never taken.
I still think that this was most probably a lab error of some kind, but if not then here is yet another virtue of PM . Has anyone else here experienced a reduction in PSA score whjle taking PM?
On the internet the only circumstance reported as producing such an extreme reduction in score was removal of the prostate and I still have mine. The only possibly relevant factor that has changed since the previous PSA test is that I am now taking PM, in quite high doses, which is reported as being prostate friendly (in fact some men use that as an excuse for taking it) and also contains a phytoestrogen which might be strong enough to suppress PSA expression. I have experienced some relief of my BPH symptoms in the last year over and above that produced by alpha blockers, but had attributed that to SP (which I was still taking at the time of the test). It is one of the reported virtues of SP that it does not skew PSA tests, unlike Proscar and its ilk which do reduce PSA expression but which I have never taken.
I still think that this was most probably a lab error of some kind, but if not then here is yet another virtue of PM . Has anyone else here experienced a reduction in PSA score whjle taking PM?