After radiation?

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st - 14 Dec 2004 02:35 GMT

Hello There:

I would appreciate a little help for my girlfriend's dad. Forgive me if I
don't use the

right words, I am not too knowledgeable in prostate cancer.

He is 71, he has practiced sports all his life, lean and healthy until 6 or
7 months ago when he noticed he was going to urinate too many times.

He was diagnosed with having some cancer cells in the Prostate, placed in
some kind of drug treatment, (Casodex and others) and then given around 37
sessions of Radiation. A week or so after finishing his radiation, he was
given the ok to travel to visit his daughter (my girlfriend). The doctor
said he was fine.

We go to walk with him 5 days a week, (fast walking for about 40 minutes)
because he feels great every time he goes, but in the last 4 days or so, he
has mentioned to his daughter he has some irritation, he blames maybe
certain spices in the food or about 1/4 of small glass of wine he had about
7 days ago. I believe what he gets is diarrhea, and I noticed that he still
goes to the bathroom to urinate a lot. (he will go before we start walking
and maybe 15 min. later and at the end of the walk again).

My question is this:

If he got the drug treatment and the radiation, shouldn't he be back to
normal?

I was planning to invite him to eat in my house (I eat very healthy) is
there anything I should be aware of about food?

Is normal that he still has to go to urinate so often?

Thank you for your reply in this subject, I will read it before I show it to
my girlfriend.

I don't want her to get too worried.

Regards,

M.

Reply to this Message

Alan Meyer - 14 Dec 2004 04:53 GMT

> ...
> My question is this:
>
> If he got the drug treatment and the radiation, shouldn't he be back to
> normal?

Like most people on this group, I'm only a patient, not a doctor.
Your friend's doctors can give more knowledgeable answers than
I can, but here are my thoughts on your questions.

It takes a while to recover from the radiation and the hormone
suppression. Radiation inflames the prostate, which then closes
in around the urethra, making it hard to get all the urine out. That
makes a man need to urinate more frequently. It is also possible
that some xrays hit the bladder, which can get irritated, also making
a man feel a need to empty the bladder frequently.

In my own case, it took about 3 months after my last radiation
treatment before my urinary habits were back to normal. I am
also younger - age 57 at the time of treatment, so I might
recover a bit faster than your friend.

Hormone therapy also has long lasting effects. In theory, the
effects wear off at some particular time (e.g., 3 months for a
22.5 mg injection). In practice however it can take a lot longer.
In my case, I think I felt the effects for almost 6 months after
my last injection. One of those effects was less energy for
exercising.

> I was planning to invite him to eat in my house (I eat very healthy) is
> there anything I should be aware of about food?

I'm not an expert on this. I suspect that healthy eating is the
same after treatment as before, but maybe others can comment
on foods or supplements that they feel helped them. I
ate normally before, during, and after treatment - also
attempting to eat healthy foods.

> Is normal that he still has to go to urinate so often?

In his situation, his prostate was probably enlarged/swollen
even before treatment since he was urinating frequently then.
Radiation makes it temporarily worse.

If a few months have passed since the end of treatment,
and if his experience is like mine, he might be improving
now and getting back, at least to his baseline from before
radiation, very soon now.

Beyond that, I don't know. It's certainly a good question to
ask his doctor - how soon will the radiation effects subside,
and will he go back to baseline, or to better than baseline?

If radiation ended just recently, then he'll need to be patient.
Healing takes a while.

> I don't want her to get too worried.

It is my understanding (see caveat above - I'm not a
doctor) that the urinary symptoms are _not_ an indicator of
failed treatment. As far as I know, these symptoms are
very benign. They're a pain in the neck. At the height of
them I was getting up seven times each night to go to
the bathroom. But they do go away and they're not symptoms
of cancer.

It's a good idea for your girl's father to discuss the symptoms
with his radiation oncologist or one of the nurses but, as
far as I know, there's no cause for alarm.

Alan

Reply to this Message

Steve Kramer - 14 Dec 2004 08:00 GMT

He is fine. But, he does have some side effects from the radiation. They
don't disappear overnight.

Don't fill him up with coffee. Otherwise, let him eat. It has nothing to
do with spices.

Signature

Prostate Cancer Survivor (so far), not a doctor
PSA 16 10/17/2000 @ 46
Biopsy 11/01/2000 G7 (3+4), T2c
RRP 12/15/2000 G7 (3+4), T3bN0M0
PSA .1 .1 .1 .27 .37 .75
EBRT 05-07/2002 @ 47
PSA .34 .22 .15 .21 .32
Lupron (1 mo) 07/21/2003 @ 48
PSA .07 .05 .06
Lupron (3 mo) 8/03 (48), 12/03, 4/04 (49), 09/04 (50)
non Illegitimi carborundum

> Hello There:
>
[quoted text clipped - 38 lines]
>
> M.

Reply to this Message

Leonard Evens - 14 Dec 2004 15:41 GMT

> Hello There:
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> He is 71, he has practiced sports all his life, lean and healthy until 6 or
> 7 months ago when he noticed he was going to urinate too many times.

It is highly likely that this had nothing to do with his prostate
cancer. It was just the reason he went to the doctor and they
discovered the prostate cancer incidental to this. It is not unusual
for men without prostate cancer to have such urinary symptoms.

> He was diagnosed with having some cancer cells in the Prostate, placed in
> some kind of drug treatment, (Casodex and others) and then given around 37
> sessions of Radiation. A week or so after finishing his radiation, he was
> given the ok to travel to visit his daughter (my girlfriend). The doctor
> said he was fine.

It appears he was treated with external radiation to destroy the cancer.
This is a standard treatment and it is highly effective, but the
likely results will depend on the details of the case. Often radiation
treatment is preceded by hormone suppressing therapy which makes the
cancer cells more susceptible to the radiation.

> We go to walk with him 5 days a week, (fast walking for about 40 minutes)
> because he feels great every time he goes, but in the last 4 days or so, he
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> goes to the bathroom to urinate a lot. (he will go before we start walking
> and maybe 15 min. later and at the end of the walk again).

It takes some time for the effect of the drugs he was taking to wear
off., but that probably wouldn't affect urination. The urinary
symptoms and diarrhea are probably the result of the radiation, but he
should improve with time. All this sounds perfectly normal as others
have attested.

As others have noted, we are not physicians, so he should check with his
doctors about such matters and not just take our word for it.

> My question is this:
>
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>
> M.

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