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Is this normal on ADT? Body hair gone
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Sep 23 2:56pm | Replies (76)Comment receiving replies
Hey Alden, So very sorry to see this living hell you are going thru. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped to think: what if this doesn’t work? Never think that no matter what you do this f****ing thing just keeps coming back.
FWIW, I read awhile back that in England, a patient with a similar condition as yours was given a blast of ADT, which wiped out all his T - possibly for good.
Then he was given a large dose of synthetic T and after a few weeks his PSA went to ZERO. His doctors declared him ‘cured’. Seems almost hard to believe but the article was in the London Times or some other reputable publication - not some bullshit blog.
Anyway, the closest I could find to this treatment was ‘bi-polar’ tx., which as others have mentioned, is an on/off type ADT regimen. But this treatment involved exogenous Testosterone - NOT the patient’s own. Could it be that our own T mutates and becomes the actual carcinogen or initiator? Way above my pay grade!
But at the time I did find that Johns Hopkins was also looking into this treatment. Might be worth doing a little digging and see what you come up with. Not trying to raise hopes or play doctor - just passing along some info that might or might not be useful. All the best to, my friend, and keep hanging in there - you sound like a real fighter to me!!
Replies to "Hey Alden, So very sorry to see this living hell you are going thru. I don’t..."
I’ve read some about BAT (bi-polar androgen therapy). Mostly being researched at John’s Hopkins. At this point, it is only employed in those who have become castration resistant. The idea is that the the cancer has adapted to a very low testosterone environment, in part, by developing many more androgen receptors. So what they do is leave you on ADT, but once a month give you a high dose injection of testosterone. As a result, your testosterone level is on a roller coaster. It goes from near zero to very high then back down to near zero, all in the course of a month. This variation supposedly gums up the cancer’s androgen receptors and can actually kill the cancer. The treatment also results in higher quality of life. The research is still in It’s still early days. I’m not castration resistant, but if i become so in the future, i will take a deeper dive into this possible treatment.
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Thanks for that reply heavyphil! That sounds very interesting. I may look into if there is a clinical trial out there for that. The last go around with Orgovyx and Erleada along with radiation to the tumor was a clinical trial. They were supposed to follow the participants with regular testing for two to three years or until there were two consecutive rises in the PSA. I was told the I was no longer part of the study followup within two months of stopping the drugs because of rising PSA. It went from 0.02 up to 10.58 in 7 months. No metastasis detected. If there is another clinical trial I would definitely consider that route. Thanks again, your comment made my day!