A few questions:
> isn’t an “8-week regime for EBRT” only 40 days, not 81 days?
> How many Grays of radiation each treatment?
As for quality of life with ADT, did your oncologist recommend resistance-training exercise? My medical oncologist recommended resistance-training exercise to minimize almost all adverse sude-effects - and it worked. (The benefits of ADT far outweigh the remaining adverse side-effects.)
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YE61HSAsFb0
> https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2023/04000/resistance_exercise_training_increases_muscle_mass.2.aspx
Here’s what Dr. Kwon recommends for salvage treatment of recurrence: https://youtu.be/Q2joD360_pI
(For me, at 65y quality of life was equal priority with successful treatment. My quality of life was good throughout ADT.)
I had a 40-minute drive to the radiation treatment center each day (mostly highway). Being retired, I simply worked it into my daily schedule. My wife later told me that if she hadn’t known I was undergoing radiation treatments, she wouldn’t have realized it from any change in me. And the short amount of time that I was gone each day for treatment were no different than any other time when I simply left to go shopping or to the gym.
I experienced no fatigue, moodiness, or brain fog. (I attribute that to both the enhanced resistance-training and cardio programs that I engaged in.)
After my radiation treatments were over but while I was still on hormone therapy, I asked my wife if she had noticed any emotional changes in me: moodiness, crankiness, aggressiveness, anger, etc. She said that she hadn’t noticed any. She says that except for my complaints about warm flashes, low libido, and muscle atrophy, she wouldn’t have noticed that I was getting radiation treatments or on hormone therapy.
(If I had to do the ADT again to treat high-risk disease, I would.)
Good luck with your decision.
Thanks for the reply. Oops, bad typing on my part. Yes, it is a 41-day regime (8 weeks + 1 day), not 81 days.
Good to hear that you got through the ADT without any major side effects. And of equal importance, good to hear that your wife thought you did well. I’ve heard/read many stories that were just the opposite. And I know it’s different for every guy.
Yes, we discussed resistance training. I work out with hand weights at home, twice weekly, and I typically walk 8-10 miles/week, and try to get in a 10-15 mile bike ride/weekly.
The radiation dosage is planned to be 68.4 Gy for the nodule in the prostate bed and 45-50 Gy for the pelvic lymph nodes, prophylactically. The lymph nodes will be irradiated for only 28 days. All subject to adjustment, depending on what the pelvic MRI reveals.
My oncologist suggested Orgovyx for the STADT, largely because recovery from the side effects is quicker than, say, Lupron. Even with insurance, I would still have to pay $975/mo OOP for the Orgovyx. Big financial stress. Would do it if I saw a big upside, but that upside just isn’t there for me in my final analysis.
Thanks for your input!