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Has anyone lowered their Abiraterone Dosage? To what effect?
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Aug 14 2:48pm | Replies (35)Comment receiving replies
Well… I started on four pills a day in the morning before food. Nauseous, throwing up, feeling bad, sick,… It was no way to live and so after about three weeks I cut it back to three. Still not good but much better. So I saw a different doctor and he said there is excellent results in a study taking one pill with food. So that’s what I started doing and my primary doctor became angry. However, he was also my provider of that $18,000 a month medication. So obviously I needed less of it Makes me wonder a year and a half later he switched me to Erleada. Throughout this whole process, my PSA has gone up and down and up and down with a high of 7.5 and a low of .1.
Replies to "Well… I started on four pills a day in the morning before food. Nauseous, throwing up,..."
My story is very similar to yours and my doctor was the provider of that medication only he charged $20,000 Per month. My PSA went to 74 before he would take me off of Erleada and last time I was in the office he would not see me – he sent me to his associate. I think they know, but their greed gets the best of them.
I also could not tolerate four pills a day and saw another Doctor Who recommended the one pill with food and so that’s what I did. But eventually, aButeron. Affected my ureas so badly that I had to get off at and had extreme pain and problems. I doubled the dose of prednisone on my own to try and overcome that closure of the urethra, but nothing worked except getting off of it. Now I am looking at nuclear medication.
I do feel my doctors dependency on that $20,000 a month was a contributing factor to my PSA now being 74. Just my opinion.
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dirtdancer: I was taking two abiraterone pills a day (2 x 500mg = 1,000mg, for almost two months), which I understood to be the standard dosage (in addition to 3-month Lupron injections). Were you taking 2,000mg per day (4 x 500mg)?
Also, did either doctor check your testosterone levels (which I understand is the purpose in taking abiraterone: to *assist* in lowering testosterone, intending to "starve" cancer cells and thereby lowering the PSA), and if so and the results were available to you, what were the testosterone levels on the 4 pills, then the 3 pills, and now the Erleada (and at what dosage?)?
Hopefully, the Erleada has been more uniformly and reliably efficacious, and *much less* of a problem for you!