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What causes sore nipples on a male in prostate cancer treatment?
I finished my prostate surgery, radiation and 2 shots of Lupron 15 months ago last few weeks my nipples are tender and hurt when touched. Anyone have this experience and what could cause it . Also what id the purpose of seeing your radiologist every 6 months as long as my PSA is close to zero?
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Dr. Paul Schellhammer, a urologist who was diagnosed with PCa several decades ago, took transdermal estradiol, a.k.a. tE2, as his primary ADT drug. tE2 lowers testosterone as effectively as Lupron but one of its side effects is a higher incidence of breast development and nipple pain than Lupron.
He had nipple pain.
His pain was severe and sustained enough that he had a surgeon cut the nerve that takes the pain signal to the brain.
The procedure, he says, is called a "neurectomy of the anterior branch of the T4 nerve" which completely resolved his breast discomfort successfully.
When speaking about this he made it sound like the pain is gone and he has no regrets. His context was this pain and the treatment for it was a small price to pay for not having to endure all the side effects of Lupron that had bothered him when he took that drug instead of tE2.
I'd think that cutting a nerve would tend to cause a bit larger of a numbed area than just the nipple. However, if I experience serious nipple pain at some point this is a procedure I would look into.
Schellhammer's recorded remarks about this are part of a video interview:
Another post I saw mentioned "applying a small amount of topical diclofenac (Voltaren) gel daily" that a guy said he used for "mild nipple tenderness" caused by ADT hormone imbalance. He mentioned that he had received prophylactic radiation to his breast buds prior to going on tE2 as his ADT drug. See:
https://www.prostatecancersecrets.com/p/my-amazing-response-to-estradiol
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2 Reactions@tuckerp
Your doctors are not up to date about testosterone. There are articles all over the internet pointing out that testosterone does not feed prostate cancer but instead controls it. A few studies are listed below:
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo
@pesquallie
While this is true in advanced cases. People who are newly diagnosed with prostate cancer benefit greatly from testosterone deprivation. It also may be true if someone has been undetectable for a long period of time and their testosterone has not come back to normal levels.
This is information provided by the Mayo clinic
ADT dramatically lowers or blocks testosterone levels in the body to slow down or stop the growth of prostate cancer. Because prostate cancer cells rely on male hormones (androgens) like testosterone to grow and multiply, starving the cancer of this hormone causes the tumor to shrink or grow much more slowly
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1 Reaction@climateguy
If you want to talk to Dr. Paul Schellhammer He comes to almost all of the weekly Ancan.Org Advanced prostate cancer meetings.
I hesitated when it was my turn to have a second Lupron shot despite my PSA after surgery and radiation and one Lupron shot .01 but I gave in when both radiologist and oncologist said odds were better if I had the second shot , I never should have listened to them.