Been on Hormones for 13 months now the confusion is setting in.

Mel, read my post, I stated again what it was in December, and I updated my signature. It was 40.4 in December, I am expecting he will want to do another one at my next visit later this month. Seems to be on a six month cycle right now.

Having trouble following the logic of what you are saying, but really don't want to go in that endless circle we have had before on this subject. You had 100% of the choice. You researched, met with some top doctors, deliberated much before deciding, asked lots of questions to lots of people, then accessed your own risk factors into it, and how much you were willing to "gamble", to use the word loosely, then you decided to go on HT. Based on what you went through to reach your decision, I feel strongly that you made the right choice for you, that's all I am saying. To play the devil's advocate, you could have also chosen not to start now, but to continue to observe and watch, and see how much quality time you could get without going on HT at that time. So there was a choice, and you alone made it. And that's ok.

david

adjust said...
I appreciate those sharing their HT experiences in this thread; the good and the bad. I'd rather be prepared, and not feel that I'm the only one on earth going through some stupid side effect.

I've only had one 3mo. Lupron shot so far (2nd one is scheduled for end of May), this is accompanied with Casodex. Hot flashes, slight fatigue and don't forget Libido, are all I've experienced thus far.

I'm happy with the benefits I've gotten from HT... I had hip pain that was so bad I could hardly walk; now that pain is 95% gone and my PSA has dropped from 101 to 0.8

Thanks all! No other choice I'm aware of,
adjust

I've read many times that some patients are prescribed Casodex and Lupron for the duration of their treatment. Mine was for the first month only, before my first Lupron injection but my pharmacists misread the prescription and I was taking it for the first 2 months and my ONC was pretty upset that his prescription was not read properly.....so the question is, why do some ONC's prescribe it for the one month duration(I was told to help prepare my body for the Lupron) and others for the entire treatment?

Dave-Rockville,MD said...
Foxrun,

My URO and RO had me on Casodex the whole time to block the 5% of "T" that is made elsewhere in your body.

Dave

Really......if I had known that I would have opted to stay on as well...........if you're going to be chemically castrated, you may as well go all the way while you're in that suffering zone anyway. I always amazed as the information I continuously absorb on this forum, albeit a tad late!..............thanks!

Is there a way of knowing which of my SEs I can attribute to Lupron and which to Casodex? I've thought of everything as jumbled all together, but perhaps that's not correct?

As for the original topic, HT isn't a "hell on earth" for me...more like a "purgatory on earth." Yes, I hate it, but it's tolerable. (Well, it's BARELY tolerable, to be accurate.) That said this thread has me wondering if there's another shoe to drop since I'm only six months in...

Michael

I'm in the 8 week lead-in to starting primary radiotherapy. My urologic oncologist, radiology oncologist, and medical oncologist all consensed that I did not need antiandrogen along with the start of my Lupron treatment. I asked and argued for it, but they all said the side effects were not justified by proven benefits.

They said that in this neadjuvant (pretreatment) condition, the antiandrogen did not have any proof of effectiveness over LHRH agonist monotherapy. I have no symptoms of any kind, and we're doing ADT as neoadjuvant before RT. It's a totally different thing if one is looking at recurrent PSA rising after primary therapy, of course. Then they'd throw everything at it I guess.

This has aggravated me the entire time, since it seems most any studies I can find of this ADT/RT combo almost always refer to CAB with both LHRH agonist and antiandrogen. For me it's a moot point now anyway since I'm approaching 2 weeks on Lupron alone (and have absolutely no side effects, but the fun may begin soon). So, my T level should be dropping to the desired low range very soon. It turns out too that my baseline T was fairly low at 440 ng/dL. That's about the 26th percentile for a 55 year old.

And as someone pointed out it may be good to hold some weapons in reserve. PCa is an adaptive and clever foe, so we don't want to let it get a head start on coping with HT options any sooner than we have to.

There were comments as to "choice". We all, in the ultimate scheme of things, have the power of "choice". But in reality, we can not really exercise "choice" without effects.

For example, if I do not "choose" to take a list of "optional" medical tests every x months, my insurance will not pay if a condition arises that might have been detected by the "optional" tests. From that, once my doctor advised HT, if I had not done it, insurance could (and would) have refused to pay for further treatment. So I did it, it has had significant side effects, I stop with my uro's agreement, and all is right with the insurance.

So, did I have a "choice"? Not unless I had deep pockets (which I do not).

Don't even try to use a "choice" argument with me.

Michael_T said...
Is there a way of knowing which of my SEs I can attribute to Lupron and which to Casodex? I've thought of everything as jumbled all together, but perhaps that's not correct?

As for the original topic, HT isn't a "hell on earth" for me...more like a "purgatory on earth." Yes, I hate it, but it's tolerable. (Well, it's BARELY tolerable, to be accurate.) That said this thread has me wondering if there's another shoe to drop since I'm only six months in...

Michael

Hey Michael,
That's a good question and one I've wondered many times and you're right "hell on earth" is tad extreme and in all fairness it was tolerable in some relative term.