Significant Weight Gain Following External Radiation

I have reviewed other threads and none of them deal with weight gain during/following external radiation only. Many addressed the weight gain issue during the hormone treatment/radiation and chemo due to the steroids.

Has anyone experienced significant weight gain during their external radiation treatment? I know this needs to be addressed with the doctor but am wondering if this is indicative of anything more.

Thanks.

Welcome to HW, sorry you need to be here.

Weight gain is not a side effect I experienced. It's not one that you normally hear of with EBRT.

Post RT, you get things like bowel trouble, depression, ED.

This PC stuff can serious mess with your brain and emotions. It's possible there may be another cause that assessed. One of the things we tend to do post treatment is to blame all new problems on the treatment. It's not always true.

Hang in there and ask any other questions you have,
Andrew

Ladyleese,

Weight gain is not a symptom we usually see with radiation therapy except for guys who are on hormone therapy at the same time (the hormones definitely do cause most guys to gain weight) but radiation by itself, not so much.

It is, I think, on the list of symptoms he should report to his radiation oncologist but that is a sort of catch-all list.

Many ROs do recommend a different diet during treatment -- lower in fiber to hold down the bowel symptoms -- and I suppose that he could be putting on some weight from that, although 35 lbs is sort of a lot.

As I understand it he (Easy E) is finished with his 25 EBRT sessions and is due to get seeds early next month. That seems a very sensible treatment regimen for his Gleason 7(4+3) intermediate risk disease. Aside from his weight gain, how is he doing?

I'm sorry he had a bad experience here on the forum. He did come back, briefly, after the thread that upset you. We were glad to see him then and would be glad to see him in the future.

I did gain some weight after ART, simply because I finally after all those weeks had more leeway as to my diet.

My RO had wanted me to have a completely stable bowel situation, and mine is certainly not that. As a result, I was very careful about the foods and quantity. I probably lost some weight in that process. I know I gained a bit afterward just for eating what I wanted, not what was good for me.

But as a side-effect of the RT specifically, no, I have not seen discussion of that.

Lisa, after reading your last comment in the other thread, I noticed that his weight gain was 35 pounds I. 5 weeks, and it struck a chord with me. This is out of left field, and maybe it's something obvious that the docs have already checked out and ruled out as an issue - but, I recall, my dad, who was NOT undergoing radiation at the time and had not YET even been diagnosed with PC, had a very sudden weight gain of about 60 pounds in 2 months.

The Doctors had a really tough time figuring it out, and I had to have him moved to another, more comprehensive hospital. Finally they were able to diagnose him as having Nils disease, also known as Minimal Change Disease...

www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=24095

F you read the link, you will see it's a kidney disorder, an autoimmune disease, that can happen in Adults, but is more common in children. He was not gaining weight. He was retaining water. I'm a layman, but I wonder two things, first could it be that this is not something the RO would think about? (in my dads case, the nephrologist didn't really consider it since it's not very common in adults ) and second, could this be an immune reaction to the radiation? Jus a thought. 35 pounds seems to be a lot of weight to gain In 5 weeks, so I'm guessing he is retaining water.

It's a long shot, but worth asking about, especially if he has experienced edema.

If you read the link, it says the only way to diagnose Nils is via kidney biopsy.

Please let us know what the doc says, I'm curious. I hope it helps figure out his situation. Like I said, that's a lot of weight in a short time, I would bet money it's a kidney/water retention issue.

Good evening,

I wanted to let you all know that Jerry had his brachy surgery last Friday and seems to be doing well. He has been going out as if nothing ever happened. At this point he has no side effects that he is reporting. He had a total of 69 seeds implanted and thus far has lost one. He goes in for his follow up appointment Thursday morning.

I hope you all are doing well.

Lisa

No Protoman....he admitted to having an increase in appetite and eating while going through treatment. He has lost about 12 pounds since and is working on taking off the weight he put on.