prostate cancer treatment Brachytherapy side effects

It has been over a year since my husband had his Brachytherapy treatment (09-12-11).  He's PSA is way down and all looks good expect for the side effects. 

He is still having after affects from the treatment.  Getting up several times at night to go to the bathroom and the burning is very painful to uninate.  He has taken Flomax and has not helped at all.

If anybody has any suggestions, I welcome any help.

Thank you,

Shannon

I had similar problems with my IMRT treatments. Flomax didn't seem to do much. Vesicare seemed to work better. He should talk to his doctor. There are better drugs than Flomax.

Shannon, I had my LDR Brachy this past September so I'm only a few month's out, but I never experienced what your hubby is going through. Some minor frequency but no pain when urinating. If you haven't already I would suggest getting in to see your Uro - and if you have already and he's still dealing with this I'd find another Uro.
Best to you both and hope you get the answers you need to get past these issues.

Try eliminating all fluids that have caffine, any color, acidic, sugar, or carbonated. Yeah....just drink water and a lot of it for many days and see if this helps. If it does, then you can reintroduce items one at a time to see what may be the irritant. Caffine, acid, and carbonation can cause problems. If this doesn't do it, talk to the doc.

hootie said...
It has been over a year since my husband had his Brachytherapy treatment (09-12-11). He's PSA is way down and all looks good expect for the side effects.
He is still having after affects from the treatment. Getting up several times at night to go to the bathroom and the burning is very painful to uninate. He has taken Flomax and has not helped at all.

If anybody has any suggestions, I welcome any help.

Thank you,
Shannon

Me too, but not that extreme. I still have the burning sensation from time to time and I haven't slept well since. My family Dr thinks the burning sensation is tissue scarring from the radiation and asked me id I wanted a referral to my URO, but I declined. I also cannot hold my pee and good as I use to and I always have an awful urge when around running water. To me, all small stuff in the big scale of things. I do find that the SEs are either not as bad or my body has adjusted to the problems......hope this helps!

If you have radiation cystitis you will have the urge to pee even when your bladder is empty and it will burn every time you pee.

Thank you for the all the information. I will pass this along to him this weekend.
Thank you again!

Buzz1 said...
I have had the same burning sensation for the past 3 months. I ma now on cipro (doesn't work), I was treated with the same meds for a unrinary tract infection (eased the burning issue while taking them) but meds are finished and the burning issue has returned. I just had a cysto (camera into penis) Uro was looking for scarring on the prostate negative results. I have been bleeding from the rectum. I just had a colonoscopy doc found nothing but bleeding persists and the urination burning is still there. Scheduled for CAT scan of pelvic area next week...

What procedure did you have done? Seeds?

i visited my uro and my radiation oncologist a week apart.  my uro did his regular exam and my radiation oncologist just talked to me (my request).  both said radiation cystitis without batting an eyelash.  they say it's something they don't treat unless they have to.

looking back i recall thinking in had a UTI and went to my GP who said no UTI.  then the bleeding started about a month or so later and lasted a couple of weeks.  then bleeding stopped but burning continued but gradually decreased.  now there is no blood or burning.

ed

 

This would almost make me say that for side effects surgery is the best treatment? But then are you in that 5% they talk about with bad side effects? Or relatively is this not too bad? One thing for sure, you can read about side effects in healing well. But then the guys with 0 symptoms probably won't write and won't complain! My understandings so far is time will heal a lot of this. unfortunately time will also aggravate conditions, just like all radiations. My buddy In calif had proton therapy and he is impedent now! so go figure. seems we pay our dues to stay alive! Brachy has a lot of levels of radiation, and seed placements, and counts. Did he have his procedure at a very high turnover center? I am looking into center that do 12 a year and discarding them in comparison to Chicago that does 1000's