Dad's psa level is 11,000 - that's bad isn't it?

[Blackisthecolour]

My Dad has been very tired for a while now, he's also had recurrent pain in his hip, back and shoulder. After a dramatic weightloss (about 3 stone in 8 week), I forced him to see his GP.

4 days after his bloodtest she phoned to say he has prostate cancer and as his PSA level is 11,000 (it should be 6!!!!!!!!) It is likely to be very advanced. In her words he is 'a very poorly man.'

I am just in shock, he's had a chest xray and CAT scan and will be having a biopsy and MRI next week.

It's bad isn't it? Very bad. Part of me doesn't want to believe they can know the severity without the diagnostic tests? Surely the PSA test is just for screening? He is only 60. I am not ready for him to leave me.

I'm sorry OP that is a shock. A PSA that high usually indicates a prostate cancer that has spread. It commonly spreads to the bones and may explain his recent pain. Whilst this all sounds grim, please remember that there may well be some good treatment options for your dad. My dad also had advanced prostate cancer on diagnosis (his PSA was over 40,000) and was treated with hormone therapy that gave him several good years. His cancer wasn't curable, sadly but that was over ten years ago and I know that they've made further treatment advances in that time.

Be kind to yourself in the next days and weeks. The shock and sadness of the diagnosis was the worst time for me.

I'm so sorry you are going through this. My Dad was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer at the start of lockdown in March. He had no symptoms of the prostate mass itself, only pain in his shoulder from where it had spread to. He went for scans and bless him it is in multiple sites all over his skeleton and also in 2 abdominal lymph nodes. His psa level was 90 but I'm not sure how closely the actual number correlates to the severity of spread.
However, I came on here to say that he has been started on hormone injections and takes an oral drug called enzalutamide. Apparently this is incredibly expensive BUT because of covid the oncologist was allowed to use it as traditional chemo would have really immunosuppressed him.

He is, touch wood, doing very well. The pain stopped v rapidly, psa levels reduced to 0.3 and, aside from tiredness he is living with the disease and coping. It wont cure him but it has bought us time as a family. We haven't asked about life expectancy as frankly we would rather take it a day at a time.
I really hope your Dad has a similar or better outcome and again I'm so sorry you are experiencing this x

Thankyou both so much for your responses. I don't know why but the fact he has literally almost halved in the last 8 weeks has made me doubt he'll make Christmas so to read that he may have some time left is a great comfort xx

We went through a similar thing. Dad was almost asymptomatic but a psa test came back at 22,000.
I wish we had made the most of the time when he was diagnosed but still well. My mum in particular began grieving as soon as it was confirmed as stage 4 yet he lived another 4 years. They are making huge strides in treatment all the time. Dad was responding to the prostate cancer treatment but it spread to his liver before they could suppress it enough. Each day as it comes is absolutely the right approach. It's a massive shock so give yourself time to process but don't jump forward too far..none of us know what tomorrow will bring.