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Anemia after RT? How long to recover?

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Posted 12/8/2015 12:24 AM (GMT 0)
I had RT Back in the spring. Still have below normal hemoglobin and absolute lymphocytes, possibly (probably?) from rad damage to the bone marrow in the pelvis. How long did it take for your recovery?
Posted 12/8/2015 12:31 AM (GMT 0)
Never had anemia but have had rectal bleeding due to radiation burns, which I needed ablation to correct. I guess we all have different reactions to radiation and quality of the rad team is a huge issue.
Bob
Posted 12/8/2015 6:01 AM (GMT 0)
It's been over a year and my metrics are finally getting back within normal range. Hemoglobin is still low, but Red Blood count and Hematocrit have gotten to low end of normal past couple of tests

Fortunately that is the only side effect

Blood Tests\Date Reference 11-16-15 10-19-15 09-01-15 07-29-15 07-09-15 06-01-15 04-27-15 03-25-15 02-04-15 12-31-14 10-28-14 09-04-14

Lymphocytes Abs [1.00-4.80] .890 0.696 0.84 0.98 0.808 0.722 2.15 0.74 0.77 0. 61

Red Blood Cell count [4.20-5.80] 4.41 4.41 4.15 4.12 3.99 4.31 4.49 4.56 4.39 4.0 4.48 4.51

Hemoglobin [13.5-17.5}] 13.1 13.2 12.5 12.4 12.3 12.8 13 14 12.8 12.8 13.3 13.4

Hematocrit [38.5-50] 40 40.6 37.9 37.3 36.3 39.4 40 42.2 40.8 36.5 38.9 40.6

I attribute my lack of fatigue to high doses of vitamin D-3 to keep my serum D in 50's

serum D [30-100] 58 59 52 50 57.3 78.8
Posted 12/8/2015 6:51 PM (GMT 0)
Somewhat like Nomar, I've had slightly below normal hemoglobin, red blood cell count, and lymphocytes ever since radiation. My MO's associate looked at the numbers, said "I have leukemia patients that would kill for these numbers", so no problem. I thought it a little worrisome that he used leukemia patients for the baseline! I hope to be rather better than that!

There's not much to do for it anyway, it appears. The main "therapy" appears to be blood transfusions, and they don't do that until the numbers are way down into a desperate range. I got the "suck it up, buttercup" vibe from the doc.

So, slowly and slowly it seems to be trending up, the hemoglobin has just gotten above 13.5 at my last check (14, woo hoo). I'm not sure how much of that has been from radiotherapy, and how much from the ongoing HT.
Posted 12/9/2015 12:42 AM (GMT 0)
Well, I suppose that I can take some comfort then.

It occurs to me that the numbers can't be too bad, I had a nose job done since the RT. They probably wouldn't have done the surgery if the low blood count were an issue.
Posted 12/9/2015 12:48 AM (GMT 0)
By the way, I found the nose job, repair deviated septum and balloon sinoplasty, genuinely improved my quality of life. Well, a poor substitute for the losses sustained from PCa treatments, but I will take what I can get.
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