I received my first chemo and lupron shot on March 30th. I must say I had a pleasant experience at the MD Anderson Center in Cooper Hosp Camden, NJ. My onc said that being on casodex 50mg for 7 days lowered my PSA from 435 to 210. The side effects so far is mainly fatigue. I make it a point to be as active such as taking walks and do light stretching and it has helped tremendously. Lack of appetite is clearly present. Ivery adapted to the Mediterranean diet eating lots of fruits and vegetables, fish and grilled chicken. Does anyone have a diet that can share to help me get through to boost my energy and/or appetite? I hope to duplicate the many great men in this group who has had success in treatments for years for PC. Wishing God's blessings to us all and good health- Nick
First Chemo and Lupron: I received my... - Advanced Prostate...
First Chemo and Lupron
Nick,
I'm glad to hear that you got such an immediate and significant response from the brief, low dose of Casodex alone. I think that shows that your cancer is quite sensitive to ADT and bodes well for the rest of your treatments.
I have a possible suggestion for appetite. If you're in a place where you can get marijuana (it's legal for medical use in more and more states in the U.S. and also in some other countries), it might help. I haven't used it since I was very young but at the time, all of us who used it wanted to eat ("got the munchies".) It was also relaxing and tended to elevate one's mood ("got the giggles") too.
If you can get it, I'd check with the docs to make sure it's not a conflict with any other drugs you're taking. There is some evidence that it actually has mild anti-cancer properties as well as now being commonly used to combat cancer and treatment side effects.
Good luck.
Alan
Hi Nick,
I guess I should welcome you the club first, Hey Welcome Nick!
Since MM is legal now in Jersey, that doesn't mean you can get it so easy. There's a dispensary in Bellmawr that's open for business. My son's friend, who has PTSD from the wars, has a script for it. I totally believe it's saving his life. I believe it helps with met bone pain too. I will ask him about his script, but I'm guessing it was at the VA in Philly. I don't know for sure if that's legal either.
I agree with Alan, as it does help with the appetite, it's relaxing, and some say it does cure cancer. I'll f/u when I have my imaging in July.
Joe
Joe wrote: "... some say it does cure cancer."
"Cure" is probably too strong a word. Let's say it's thought to have some restraining effect on the growth of cancer. But hey, that sounds good too.
Alan
I believe it destroys bad cells and does no harm to the good calls.
Hi Alan,
I personally don't quite believe that smoking pot will heal anything at all. I only believe that it has a palliative effect. Someday when the DEA gets their head out their asses, we'll see some movement on studying the plant. I'm dumbstruck that pot is a schedule 1 drug, like heroine, while coke and meth are both schedule 2. God bless Ronald Reagan, lol.
Very recent peer-reviewed research shows that MM directly and fairly strongly fights cancer in several ways, including increasing apoptosis (it doesn't take much additional apoptosis to turn the tide). I'm just starting into the books on that topic, written by physicians who have made it their primary focus for many years.
There's discussion on the net about Rick Simpson oil being used to actually cure prostate and other cancers. RSO is derived from cannabis. I will be getting my medical marijuana card this week. Here's one guy making that RSO claim: cureyourowncancer.org/denni...
Good luck with this Ed. I've been using MJ since day one, and it hasn't cured anything yet. I'm seven plus years since Dx, and I guess 1 to 2 years with mets on my spine, hip and sacrum. And I'm not sure when I'm supposed to experience pain from them. But, as of yet, no pain whatsoever. I can live with that.
Joe
Follow the canaby R. S. Oil.?..I've done 3 rounds,now doing mantainence dozing..Done many other things and now no sign last year will test again in 2wks.Good luck and believe!
Joe, I think Tricky Dickie is the one to blame.
My bad. Thanks.
Vets that want it should receive it for free from the V. A. . But that'll not happen anytime soon with the new staff of D. O. J. ...
It's not "the new staff". The sorry-assed VA has NEVER fulfilled on any significant scale its promises to veterans of anything approaching even acceptable, let alone good, and sure as hell not free, medical care. Regardless of plentiful funding many years, it just hasn't happened and isn't going to happen until and unless something like "Go downtown and send us the bill" is implemented. My local VA clinic did that with some procedures years ago, and it worked fine.
And that's for this Priority One vet, which is as good as it gets. I can't imagine what kind of runarounds, shafts, maltreatments, and malfeasance are seen by the many lower priorities. Maybe like what I experienced years ago ... they lost ALL my records, I had to drive 100 miles to get redacted quarterly PSA results a year late, my VA PCP let my PSA increase from ho-hum to terminal without saying a word, and MUCH more. And EVERY time I mention any of this to doctors' office personnel, they say they are not surprised (many have worked for the VA and most still see VA patients seeking help.) I no longer even bother to inform the VA of my cancer; I don't want them anywhere near me. Maybe "the new staff" will fulfill its promise to fix such problems. I'll believe it when I see it, but am not holding my breath.
I hope that the new staff will help..I was speaking about giving out M.M. Free to vets at the V. A. .That won't happen either.Im not a vet but my generation went to nam.So I've had several friends that had Asian orange and where not treated well. How about the Az. Vet that at least won his civil case for not telling him he had all the signs of P. C. ,even checking him thus putting him into stage 4 P. C. .They say hundreds have been lied to put off many to death..So that means probably thousands. We shall see? Good luck in your journey!
"How about the Az. Vet that at least won his civil case for not telling him he had all the signs of P. C. ,even checking him thus putting him into stage 4 P. C." is exactly what happened to me, too, and my "signs" included a prostate nodule and PSA rapidly rising to almost 9 before he mentioned it to me.
Several websites publicize the fact that the VA system is officially dedicated to denying vets the medical care they were promised. Instead of seeking the maximum care they're entitled to, it actively seeks to provide the minimum care possible under the law. Even our own official portal into our own VA medical records vastly filters what we can see, despite laws and claims to the contrary.
A couple of examples include:
youtube.com/watch?v=QRH2nZ2...
and
disabledveterans.org/2015/0... .
Neither surprises me.
OTOH, I've had some excellent surgeons and oncologists operate on me through the VA ... i.e., wearing a VA hat and operating in VA hospitals on that day of the week as part of their teaching hospital and national cancer center contracts with the government. What poisoned their advanced skills and efforts was the VA environment (in multiple VA hospitals over multiple states for me), including dangerously faulty equipment, horrible recovery ward personnel and policies and procedures, zero post-op wound care, partying late at night in the hallways, retribution against patients AND SURGEONS who complained of any of that, paralyzing me (and I'm sure many more) by administering far too much/many central nervous system depressants, asking ME how much of those drugs I wanted them to inject and refusing to use their own education to make that determination, and pages more like that.
Giving MM to vets, OTOH, would require close medical scrutiny to avoid its descent to a national pot party at the taxpayers' expense. Even the usually well-informed guys in this forum have demonstrated very little understanding or currency regarding the purely medical, purely anti-cancer features and forms of cannabinoids. The research is too new, the stigma remains too powerful, and the vast majority of citizens and doctors still think MM is better described as WW ... Wink, Wink. I'm really looking forward to reading up on it and making my own informed decision on MM, and I have a head start in that my integrative oncologist has studied it, has close personal and professional ties with the oncologists pioneering its formal research, has used it to prolong lives beyond ANYone's prognoses with the most quickly lethal forms of cancer known, and says HELL, yes, it is a medically sound, no-brainer, independent and synergistic addition to most PC drug protocols ... no winking involved.
I am in complete agreement of hell ya!
The chance of getting a top notch doc like Leibowitz or Myers at the VA is next to zero..I had a buddy who used the VA for his PCa I warned him not to and use Medicare and go to a top hospital like MD Anderson, Mayo, or Johns Hopkins when he had BCR after RP. He had a GL 4+3 = 7 with no mets and is dead 3 years after diagnosis
Very sad!
Good luck with imaging.
Nick, check out " live an Alkaline life", foods famously thought to help everything.Drink at least spring water...no processed sugar or foods..It's more than a diet...It's a lifestyle change. And dramatic..And I loved a lot of bad foods like ice cream..You can do anything once in a while, but daily habits of bad food should be broken .If you are serious..
Awesome. Thank you so much
You are in yourself a "Great Man " We are all being tested in many respects.Doing our best is all that we can do..
I wouldn't go near chemotherapy without reading the indispensable "The Chemotherapy Survival Guide" by McKay and Schacher. It addresses all the questions you're asking and dozens more.
amazon.com/Chemotherapy-Sur...
But, then, I wouldn't have gone near chemo anyway without doing hundreds of hours of study on it first AND an extensive consult with Leibowitz of Compassionate Oncology. I (and some of the biggest names in PC treatment) consider him decades ahead of most other medical oncologists and institutions.
Then there's the Lupron. I can find no valid medical reason to use it rather than degarelix/Firmagon. Firmagon is clearly medically superior by almost every metric. Lupron is a bad habit, IMO and that of every oncology nurse I've asked, and it's they and our PCPs, much less than our oncologists, who deal with SEs
I went with the ketogenic diet for many reasons before my PC returned. I've had such great results for those and other unexpected reasons that I'm glad to see it now being applied to the fight against cancer.
Watch all that fruit. It has shown to be ineffective against cancer, and most of it promotes cancer's companion nemesis, Type II diabetes. A few berries a day is all the fruit most Americans can eat without negative impact. As for veggies, I hope you're not including the ones our bodies consider nothing but sugar, such as potatoes, rice, and most all white veggies besides cauliflower. And, of course, whole grains from pasta to bagels, are little more than sugar to our bodies.
About the only SE I've noticed from my chemo is reduced appetite. Food still smells and tastes fine, but I simply fill up sooner. That's one advantage of keto eating: if we're not getting enough calories because of reduced appetite, we can take advantage of keto's emphasis on fats and their high calorie density. Saturated and monounsaturated fats are very healthy if not accompanied by too much sugar (see above), and we don't need to consume carbs (besides colorful vegetables) anyway because our bodies can make plenty from dietary protein. I'm starting to get a bit too lean from my reduced appetite, and plan to start raising my fat intake soon. The whole concept of keto eating is to consume the necessary amounts of protein as top priority, eat pounds of colorful veggies, and then eat enough fats to keep our body fat percentage where it needs to be. It PISSES ME OFF to think of all those decades I ate zero bacon, chicken skin, butter, coconut oil and other very healthy fats simply because the damned Con Agra, Monsanto, et.al. lobbyists bribed the government into telling us those are unhealthy.
You've said a mouth full ....I do eat fruit .I'll cut back..Iwill look into Keto more seriously..The giant food conspiracy is surly not based on our good health..Thanks for the good information. Inspiring...
You might like to check out the CSIRO diet - has come out in book form and been updated a few times to take in latest research ... look for Mediterranean type foods and try the juice of 4 sticks of celery (no leaves - they are bitter, four small carrots ... skin and all but no tops, four Granny Smith apples (ONLY Granny Smiths apples) - the whole lot including the stems!, a small piece of fresh ginger (ginger knocks out harmful bacteria), a small piece of beetroot (raw) ... a few inches. Keep the items in the refrigerator beforehand. Consider how you feel before drinking this brew, wait five minutes after taking it and you'll feel really refreshed.
Cheers, Aussiedad
p.s. Use an Archimedes screw juicer ... slow screw type pushed items through a fine metal strained ... fast type juicers raise the temp and knock out a lot of the goodness.
I want a glass of that right now.Dont have Archimedes. I can get one.Keep and try your recipe.Sounds delicious!
Hi everyone.
As was said here before, there is no harm in trying alternatives to the three standard pilars in our conventional medicine when it comes to treating cancer. I believe that there is a lot out there, especially from nature itself, that may have a positive effect on either the conventional cancer treatment when it comes to lessening side-effects or maybe some of those things even decrease cancer growth. I would never recommend to anyone to stop their conventional treatment or anything, but definitely look into the alternatives as well. Cannabis oil is definitely one of those things. Another one could be the cellular complex (essential oil) from DoTerra Essential Oils.
Good luck to everyone!
Protein drink like Muscle Milk can help with energy and calories. It seemed to help my husband through chemo-lows
Methylprednisolone acetate with Lupron
Lupron and Casadex
Zytiga resistance and Chemo
2nd chemo session done
