Starting Radiation Therapy

Tx,

Welcome to HW. As much as we'd like to not have any new company, we're here, and the door is open.

You are goingt to get a lot of questions on choices of treatment, so I'll not go there. I expect that you have talked with multiple surgeons and Rad. Therapists in the process of a decision.

I did adjuvant IGRT (after surgery), but the basic side effects are pretty much the same. At my clinic, I met a number of men who were doing RT as primary treatment. All of us are "Calypso" guys - a marker that they plant into the prostate much like the gold markers. In my case they were planted into the scar tissue.

I will say that the guys who were "primary" treatment got along a lot better than I did (seriously - we had quite the discussions). Most did not have any real urinary issues. Mine were from the surgery, worsened a bit by the RT. We all had fatigue, some less than others. Only a few had real bowel issues (again, if you had surgery or past colo-rectal issues - I had both, they may be problematic).

My day-by-day report is in the thread linked from my signature (below).

Welcome again, and let us know as you have questions, or just need to vent.

I just finished 43 treatments on a different machine than what you will have done. Not sure of the exact name, but it does a CT scan before each treatment to align with the prostrate.

My side affect was mainly my bowels, which the dr said has nothing to do with the radiation. RIGHT! I would go from constipated to normal. I would be bloated and had wet farts. Never trust a fart. LOL. I have not had any diarrea or fatique.

One man there did not have my bowel problems, but did say he experienced fatique.

Good luck to you and hope you go thru with no side effects.

John

I had IMRT almost six years ago as my primary treatment. I had no side effects the first two weeks. Then a little burning during urination.....nothing real bad was gone within a week of ending treatments. I almost missed the sinsation! My bowls loosened up but no dirreaha. That's it. I was able to run 29 of the 36 days that I had treatments . The other days it was just to cold to go outside. I never could understand why a radiation treatment would cause fatique/ My RO said it wouldn't. He was right. Six years down the road and all is still working well, no known side effects except a little blood on the stool if I take a lot of aspirin for a migrine.

My husband also had IMRT with gold markers as his primary treatment. He had NO fatigue at any time during or after the treatments. In fact, he said he felt better for the whole nine weeks. I think it was because he finally made the treatment choice and relaxed somewhat. Aside from the tedium of going each morning, it was a not unpleasant experience. Lots of homemade cookies and friendly techs! He looks back over the entire experience and says that the two biopsies were the worst part.

He had what he called 'wet farts' once in awhile following treatment that went on for longer than we expected, but he has them no more at less than a year out from treatment. He said they were no big deal. He had no pain or diarrhea, although he sometimes noticed a bit of mucus in his stool.

He also had a redness across his backside that began the last day of treatment and lasted a couple of weeks. He said it didn't hurt, but it looked like a light rash. That was pretty much it. He had a few more treatments than you did, as a Gleason 7. They wanted to radiate the prostate margins.

His PSA has dropped, as evidenced by testing at 3 months and again 6 months later. We are very optimistic. Hope you will have an easy experience, and that it will be successful for you. Pay close attention to the water requirements and the dietary suggestions.

Juliet