psa level

[tylerboy]

I am a 61 year old male.  I had a Psa test aroung a year and a half ago and the score was 2.3.  During my last physical my Psa rose to 5.2 . I was placed on cipro for 2 weeks and it fell to 3.4.  I then went to a urologist and he put me a cipro for and Alleve for 4 weeks.  My psa dropped to 3.1. I however had sent a psa sample to a respectable lab 2 weeks before this and my score was 2.3. My urologist I believe thinks I have some inflammation in the semen as he checked during a prostate massage. He checked it under a microscope and said he saw some white blood cells. I am happy that he is a conservative urologist and does antibiotics before biopsies.  I was told by the staff at the Dr.s office that any drop is good even though I was hoping for a lower psa score.  The only problem is that I did show a good drop from the other Lab where I sent in my blood sample.  I was very careful and wiped away the first 2  drops of blood and made sure I did not contaminate the sample. I will be seeing my urologist soon and I think he may continure with the cipro and do a retest.  Is it true that prostatitis is hard to erradicate.? I was told that some men stay on cripro for 3 months.  Please let me know anything that you feel that could help with my situation.  Many thanks  G

[tylerboy]

Hi Doctor Veena
Thanks for your input. One other question if you could answer is I had a PSA sample sent in by mail 3 weeks ago just to check up on it myself and it came back as a 2.3.  It is a reliable lab and was done properly on my part and I was still on cipro.  Then I went this past week to a Lab in my city and had the PSA drawn again.  This was the one ordered by my Doctor. It came back as 3.1.  They said at the office it was good because it dropped to 3.1 from the original 6 weeks ago which was 3.4 however my own mail lab test was even lower at 2.3.  Can you give your input on that ?
Also how long does one have to stay on cipro for the PSA to go back to where it was a year and a half ago at 2.3 and does it ever go back to where it was?  thanks for you help.   G

[Dr_Veena]

Hi,
      Thanks for writing in. Prostatitis is a common infection in men and is treatable. Semen culture and analysis determines the organism and appropriate antibiotic for it. PSA levels are elevated due to inflammation of the prostrate and digital rectal examination of the prostrate in your case.
As, the inflammation clears up PSA levels return to normal. The normal value of PSA is upto 4ng/ml.
Best.