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Issues with mild anemia and motion sickness type symptoms
I completes 28 rounds of radiation and have been on Lupron and Aberaterone for just over a year. I have suffered from fatigue and have discussed this symptoms with my Cancer Doctors and my Primary Doctor. Recently my Primary Doctor ordered blood work and confirmed that I have mild anemia. My real question or concern is recently over the last 4 months I have experianced dizziness and motion sickness type symptoms at an increasing frequency. I find that at least 5-10 times a day I get dizzy and physically disoriented. It feels similar to motion sickness. During these episodes I often need to reach for a solid/stable surface near me to regain my balance. The dizziness, nausea, and tunnel vision typically resolve themselves in a matter of minutes. On more extreme episodes I'll feel mentally fuzzy for and hour or so before returning to normal. I have experiance one episode in which I vomited as a result of being dizzy. I plan on discussing this with my radiology team and my hormone doctor. My question is have any of you experianced similar symptoms? If so how did you and or your doctor manage these symptoms?
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Zytiga (abiraterone acetate) can cause dizziness. This lightheadedness is often linked to underlying side effects like high blood pressure, heart rhythm changes, low potassium, or adrenal insufficiency. Have you been checking Your blood pressure regularly. I do it every day, Since abiraterone gave me high blood pressure five years ago.
Some people get serious fatigue due to Zytiga. I was working with one guy who would get up in the morning and be so tired he had to go back to sleep for three hours. I told him to ask his doctor to increase his prednisone to 10 mg. The doctor did that, and his fatigue was greatly reduced.
At one conference, I watched online, a doctor talked about his situation with Zytiga. He had a lot of fatigue so he increased his prednisone to 7 1/2 mg. That helped a lot, but after a little while, he found out it caused him to become pre-diabetic so he had to cut back down.
I am telling you about both of these stories so you realize that more prednisone can make a difference, but you have to be aware that you have to get your blood sugar tested, An A1c test would do it every three months.
Some things to talk to your doctor about.
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1 ReactionADT is known to cause anemia. My levels went from mid normal to just below normal range on Hemocrit, Hemoglobin, and red blood cells. Slowly recovered after ADT ended. Probably related to low testosterone.
Prednisone is known to cause insulin resistance the key driver of type 2 diabetes. This can result in prediabetes or even diabetes if you are already prediabetic. Going without the prednisone while on Zytiga is worse. If at risk see if you can get a 2ed gen ARSI (Nubeqa, Erleada, Xtandi) to replace it. You might need this due to the dizziness.