PSA...we're coming to get you!

And it is going to be two against one, as Mrs S is going to be providing me with the ammo needed...

How are we all? Doing good? Not doing so good? It would be great to hear from you, so please drop a comment below, it really does help in sharing our own stories so that others don’t feel so lonely during these times.

Many thanks for taking the time to open up this post and give it your attention and I am really hoping that you are getting value from my ramblings? So where are we this week? Well, a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I (when I say ‘I’, I really mean Mrs S) was going to start exploring diet, exercise and other ‘woo-woo’ things that might help with my body being in the best place possible to manage whatever it is that keeps popping up in my three monthly PSA results. And wow what a journey it has been for Mrs S🫶.

There is a reason on why ‘we’ are doing this research…and that is because there is limited support on these subjects from my current care provider, the NHS. Now before I get totally blasted for calling out the NHS, I must say that the care that I have received from them has been second to none. In fairness they identified that I had cancer in the first place and treated it pretty bloody swiftly. However, when I ask my care team what it is that I can do to help myself, I was presented with “well you could try mushrooms, that is the latest fad”. WTF! It was a serious question and the response is that?

I take it from this response is that they just don’t have the knowledge or resources available to them, and their training in regards to patient care feels like ‘fix em up, send them back on their way, until we see them back again’. I really respect what they do, and this is why we are taking some responsibility on ourselves to do what we can, and we are going to share what we find (carefully share, we are not medically trained, so go and ask someone in a white coat, with a stethoscope round their neck and with terrible handwriting if you are unsure on anything) so that you can consider this for yourselves/loved one.

So there was a pretty quick win for me in regard to diet which I introduced last year…and that was ditching the alcohol😱. I hear that audible gasp from you all. I really enjoyed a beer or two after work, a glass/bottle of decent red wine whilst cooking dinner on a Friday night and even a decent dash of a single malt and thought that I would never be able to not have a drink…then I remembered that feeling of opening my PSA results every three months and that made the decision for me that I would make this one change, it might just help? If nothing else, surely the loss of weight will help me feel better overall and be ready for anything that these cancer cells fancy chucking at me. So that is me, I had a few drinks last year at social occasions, however, this year so far nowt, nothing, zilch and I feel pretty good for it (annoyingly😒).

The other thing that I introduced was Pomi-T tablets…catchy name hey! This is what ChatGPT has to say about them:

“Pomi-T tablets are a polyphenol-rich food supplement containing a blend of four whole foods: green tea, pomegranate, broccoli, and turmeric. They are designed as a convenient way to increase daily intake of natural plant polyphenols, which are thought to have various health benefits. While not a medicinal product, Pomi-T has been studied in relation to prostate health and other areas where polyphenols may play a role.”

I take these tablets on the basis that they are not going to do me any harm, however, I am not your natural tablet swallower (I gag at the sight of someone swigging tablets back) and these are the size of a small family car…but with luck they come in a casing that you can separate and pop in water and drink. Result! Drinking water resembling mud is better than gagging at the kitchen sink for half an hour everyday trying to get these tablets down me.

So with a few things under my belt from a diet point of view, I also started ramping up my HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) exercises. Apparently when you do a HIIT, blood cell counts, particularly white blood cells, temporarily increase due to the inflammatory response triggered by the intensity of the exercise. Apparently, white blood cells, especially certain types like T cells and natural killer cells, play a crucial role in fighting prostate cancer. They are part of the immune system and can recognise and attack cancer cells…now I am well up for a creating a few more cancer fighting cells! I imagine something like this is happening after my HIIT session:

If nothing else, my weight has come down, my mood has increased and I generally feel in a much better place to make a positive impact to my future.

With that in mind, I am off to bounce around on a 15 minute HIIT session (that will please the next door neighbours) and then I am sitting down with Mrs S to pull together what ‘we’ (😉) have learnt about the scientific publishing around diet, exercise and supplements and prostate cancer ready for us to share in future posts. So make sure you subscribe, you never know there might be something of use coming up in the coming weeks.

Thank you for getting to the end, and remember to drop in the comments your experiences, it really does help everyone within this community.

If you need more support then there are some great charities ready to help:

United Kingdom: https://prostatecanceruk.org

United States: https://www.pcf.org