[SCadaddle]

At about age 62, my brother had a marginally bad PSA score, so as precautionary treatment, he had the radioactive "seed implant" done. He says hindsight is 20/20 and given the side effects of the treatment he would have rather put it off.

At about age 95 (Ninety Five), my Dad had his yearly physical and they did a PSA test on him. He scored a 24. So the family doctor that performed the PSA test as part of the physical sent him to the oncologist/urologist. He scored a 24 there as well. Perhaps it's a urinary tract infection. Run a round of antibiotics and come back to see me in a month. A month later he scored a 48. Hmmm. Come back and see me in another month. At that point he scored a 124 (One Hundred Twenty Four!). At age 95, it's too risky to try a biopsy. So lets try a round of "female hormone injections" and come back and see me in 3 months. PSA tested after that first 3 months and he scores a 12 (Twelve!). So they give him another round of injections and wait 3 months. That got him to a 6 (Six!). However, now that he had the injections, he is completely incontinent and the side effect was the loss of a lot of his muscle mass.

At nearly age 98, he had the PSA tested once again. He's back up around 124. He was given the choice of either A) treat it again with the injections and lose what little muscle mass he has to be able to get out of the bed and into his wheelchair etc. but be able to lay up in the bed all day with a great PSA number, or B) leave it go, wait for the congestive heart failure OR the stage 4 melanomas we routinely cut off the side of his neck/head behind his ear every 4 months that they pop up to do him in, and live life to the fullest. He says that's a no brainer. I choose plan B.

I'm certainly no Doctor, but the moral of MY story is you better read up on how wise it is to freak out over a PSA test when you are older than 65, and at least in my Dads case, it wasn't a cause for imminent death! He's still managing at age 98.