Hello Gents. Since October 7th when I was given Eligard I have experienced severe constipation and elevated blood pressure (high 150-160). Previously I have taken Lupron every 3 months for the past 4 years.
Realistically if Kaiser had reviewed my medical files prior to administering Eligard they would have seen I take lisinopril... but that’s another story.
I’m curious if any of you guys are currently taking Amlodipine and what side effects you have experienced (if any) and any feedback on Eligard would also be helpful as I know many have taken it recently in place of Lupron. I won’t be taking Eligard again as the past 4 weeks have been miserable.
Thanks
Dermot.
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I was on amlodipine when I was on Lupron. Did not have any problem But decided to switch to Losartan because Losartan has anti cancer properties. Losartan is Angiotensin2 receptor blocker.
Note: Lupron and Eligard contain the same medicine, i.e. Leuprolide.
Thanks for the info and yes aware that they are the same meds. But the side effects alone makes it a no no compared to Lupron. I guess the body gets familiar with the same medicine each 90 days.
This thread is very interesting. I have been taking Abiraterone w/ prednisone and switched to dexamethasone over the summer when my PSA climbed a bit. I have been getting monthly injections of Firmagon. My blood pressure had been slightly elevated but became worse towards the end of the summer, to the point where I got headaches. My GP prescribed 5 mg enalapril maleate. I moved up to 10 mg as the headaches left but BP was still to high.
I just learned C Reactive Protein is elevated to 6.9. It may be a rogue number, but this inflammation might be another confirmation of active cancerous growth. I see the GP tomorrow and the MO Tuesday. I will call a cardiologist too
After reading this thread, I have more good questions for the doctors about maximizing the thought process to make sure treatment of each symptom or side effect is part of a master plan.
Damn, this is a lot to deal with and is not for the faint of heart. Pun intended.
I am typically more profane but the curse words used are sometimes from a different era, so I try to filter them and keep those old sayings to my inner voice.
I too am taking the BP med Amlodipine and Eligard with none of the reactions you have seen. Admit I like the delivery system of Lupron better than the Eligard but it’s the same drug.
I’m taking eligard since lupron is out of supply. Both are the same drug. I’m also taking amlopidine and not experiencing any differences. Other than the way it’s administered, both Lupron and eligard are exactly the same drug with the same side effects.
I also take lisinopril + hydrochlorothiazide combined into a single pill. Lisinopril isn’t on the list of 362 drug that interact with Lupron or eligard .... do you have some additional information that you could share that says different ? Would appreciate the information. Thanks.
Well ... I have been on Lupron Xtandi for the last 24 months ... the combination has destabilized my blood pressure something awful and causes my cardiac qrs train to look screwed up too. I have my blood pressure under control at about 132/74 resting ...now ... using the three drugs I mentioned above ....but my bp is very poorly regulated ..jumping up to 215/110 with very little exertion. My family dies from strokes, so I have to be careful with this issue. I think cardiac issues are rather common with Lupron Xtandi from what I read on the group. I speak to my doctors about it and they say “ your psa is good “ and changes the subject.
My side effects from Lupron Xtandi have been huge and crippling and I’m semi wheel chair material ......
Of course i’d be dead by now without them , everyone ... especially my wife says “ it’s better than the alternative “ ... easy for them to say.
I have been on Zuniga and Lupron for 4 years and only minor elevated blood pressure hence the lisinopril. In fact I was about to start a holiday from the Zytiga Lupron prednisone cocktail and then the 3 month Lupron timing happened and they hit me with the Eligard substitute which is when my problems started on October 7. I guess our bodies are all very different. Stay strong my friend.
Most Lupron Xtandi guys have mild side effects seems like. A small percentage are hammered like me ... lucky me I guess but it’s certainly keeping my psa undetectable. I get more time with my wife and she takes good care of me ... so it all worth it .
On the plus side, it’s kinda interesting to see two different things happening out of each eye. One eye with color displays kinda rolling like slot machine wheels ... the other kinda blurry melty stuff .....wooohooo. It’s just the droopy eye and corner of your mouth that’s kinda a bummer on this shocking handsome Kirk Douglas like face.
Seriously tho ... I really do have a etrike. It’s an electric moped with two wheels on the back. The law says nothing over 20mph and 750watt motors for e- bikes and e-trikes. Mine is speed limited to around 18 mph and has a 700 watt motor. I have mine specially modified with switches to allow me to accompany someone running or walking ( wifey ) and a selection to make it mimic a mobility cart and drive at low incremental speeds of 1 mph or less. I drive in the bike lanes the couple miles up to the shopping center at 18mph ( a little faster than an average casual bicyclists ) , then switch it down one to medium speed and zoom around the shopping center sidewalks ...knocking over old ladies with canes and people pushing shopping carts. Then I go into the big foodstores or pharmacies and drive up and down the isles like a mobility cart ( electric wheelchair ) It gets some “ looks “ ... looks like I’m driving up and down the isles on a motorcycle ( I am ) yayahahahaya yayahahahaya. It has big 18” diameter , wide wheels and tons of torque so I can drive it off-road if I want. I have driven it off-road but I hate to get it that muddy and dirty because I have to clean it , too much work. yayahahahaya maybe I can’t walk very far but this scooter allows me to go for walks with the wifey, get some fresh air outdoors , go shopping locally and there’s a bit of exercise with it too. I got mine back about 7 months ago and people must have thought it was a good idea because there are 4- 5 more of them in the neighborhood now. Even the same brand which is very kewl looking. ( type in ew-38 scooter in google to see it ) I drive it for several hours WFO and I still have never exhausted the batteries. They are great fun for guys nearly crippled by adt , like me. I sold my red Harley Dyna Super Glide Custom about a year ago ( too dangerous to drive with thin bones now ) but I got this one in candy apple red with violet eyebrows ( like cars have ) .... I call it my Hardley A Davidson. 🛵🛵🛵😂😂😂😂
LOL Why don't you and the guys start your own "Street Outlaws racing on the street gang" as seen on Discovery t.v.
I just viewed the ew-38 Hardley A Davidson..... nice machine...... but I want a sidecar when I get mine.......... (I guess you let woman sit on your lap when you drive)...
Right .......right .....I’m feeling the street gang vibe ...
Yea ....we could get some clothes pins and baseball cards and put them on our spokes for that “kewl “ motor sound. I’m thinking some mean biker stickers on both the cup holder AND ( might as well go big ) the oxygen tank holder too. A rack in the back to hold your fold up walker ... a bunch of skinny grey haired old ladies wearing Bengay perfume and wearing some tight leather biker babe clothes ....
yea buddy .... instead of “ outlaws “ ...we’d call our gang the “ in-laws “ ... nobody likes those and hates to see them coming ....
Without a doubt ..... you are my greatest challenge on this forum..... If it weren't (or wasn't) for you I think I would eat the poison mushrooms I have stowed away for my ex-wife...Keep posting....
No one , especially me, puts in the “ work “ here in the group ..as much as you do , for as long as you have .. to thin out the doom and gloom and make our brothers smile a little bit. It’s fun to play straight man a little but I’m just fooling around ... it’s a much bigger ...more serious effort with you. The entire group is a better place because of you my friend ..... us croakers don’t live on treatment recipes or supplement talk alone .. we need some mental lift support too . You have a special gift of that acidic funny comment that half the time the guys don’t quite know how to respond too. That’s artistic buddy ... and when you “ get it “ ( and as you e noticed , some flies right over my head all the time ) ... it’s great .
Trade those poison caps for some psilocybin mushrooms a couple of times ... and you’ll never need the other ones or even think of them. Psilocybin are legal in Oregon state now. If you ate the other ones buddy ... we’d kick your butt ....
Go ahead and give those other shrooms to your ex yayahahahaya
Just say’in 😀😀😀😀🦃🦃🦃🦃
Think about it .. if you were considering those ex-wifey shrooms ... you could fly out to Oregon for a MH break and some pizza with “ mushrooms “ ... you wouldn’t be worried about the money either way and the change of scenery is “ always “ therapeutic. After you got done laughing hard for 45 minutes straight ( a side effect of psilocybin ) , your life would be different and a better place.
I hear you buddy ... clearly you know “ exactly “ what my circumstances are yayahahahaya I can using my right arm but it’s iffy , left side impossible yayahahahaya it’s like partial rigamortis from mid back down . I’ve thought about reducing my dosage but I’m hemmed in several ways. I try to talk to my medical team but they just say “: your psa is good “ and change the subject. Think it’s to do with my escaping hospice and making sure I have as much time as possible. When I talk of it with my wife ...she is strongly against it , she doesn’t even remotely want me to do it ... and she is taking really good care of me making my painful immobility issues as easy as possible ... plus I’ve got a lot of workarounds I use to makes things easier. Frankly I’d be very nervous about it as well .... I’d hate like heck dropping my MG and see my psa jump ... that would be really scary. It’s gonna happen eventually anyway tho.
Dropped to 120 mg and saw improvement in mobility within 3 days, It stays in your system a long time so you may be tempted to make a smaller cut and see what happens. My wife stated she would rather have me around for 3 years with a life than 10 years as an invalid. I really enjoy riding bikes with grand kids and working in garden. Different strokes for different folks.
I like bikes too. I had a large ebike hobby ( fat tire off-road and beach , and H&B trail action ... custom carriers on back of PU truck etc ) before I got sick but sold those because they were too dangerous for someone on adt. I get monthly Zometa treatments but adt is still messing with my pelvic and upper leg bones. Falling over or crashing are not options. This is where I preach workarounds. So now I still get out and ride ... I have a all terrain electric moped etrike now. I rode about 14 miles two days ago ... nearly 3 hours out. Got the local hike and bike trails, the rich warm sun ... wind in my hair , massive fall flower bloom ... still same experience, just different means. I still go shopping, ... up to the bank several miles from here, accompany my wife on long walks ... all the same stuff I did on my ebikes except I can ride my etrike right into the stores yayahahahaya. No grand kids here , just me and wifey.
I’ve already escaped hospice once ... hospice was my first medical treatment recommendation by my team of doctors. Ive already stunned my medical team once, maybe those 3 and 10 year figures would apply to me too.
Another workaround is a VR headset ... my wife retired from UCSF medical center S.F. This past Monday... she was a physicians liaison . she gave frequent conferences , cme classes and trade show presentations along with her main trouble shooting liaison work. In her pediatric presentations she demo’ed the pioneering work that UCSF is doing with virtual reality headsets. They are using brain scanner files, reformatted into a virtual reality files and creating realities where the brain surgeon can go into immersive VR dimensionally directly inside the child’s brain and look at all of the things wrong and make the best decisions on how to treat it . It can do jaw dropping things for diagnostics. They also have virtual reality VRs formatted for the child to use the headset to see his own brain problem as well .... they explain the problem and show him the problem and show how they will fix it ... this makes the child FAR less afraid and UCSF accidentally discovered that VR is an amazing pediatric pain reliever that they now use the headset during surgery and it has amazing pain and fear relief abilities. ( you can check out this VR pain relief discovery on UCSF. SFs pediatric website )
So this is another workaround I use. total immersive VR is indeed a great pain reliever for adults too .... so now I own a “ oculus quest “ and use it a lot and enjoy both substantial pain relief and fun game play .... sometimes several hours a day .... this allows me to reduce my daily opiate intake considerably .
The point of all this being that ... yes my life is reduced to crappy painful partial invalid status by ADT and APCa but I have “ workarounds “ that make my life ever so much better ... rather than just lay around and suffer .... I use numerous workarounds to have an elevated QOL . I fly Dji phantom 4 FPV drones, my drones are registered UAV aircraft with the FAA , it’s another workaround .... FPV drone flying is nearly exactly the same as VR but its real not virtual .. same pain relief with that too. I also have a very elaborate near commercial grade flight sim pit ...using full in room Cessna controls, a 12 core computer and gigantic 3 screen curve display. Once again ...sim pit flying ...like FPV drones and full immersive VR is a great pain reliever because , like the rest, it takes your mind completely off everything .I fly an extremely realistic Cassna ,170 series , all over central California and the S.F Bay Area ... mapping and scenery input real time off google maps. “ this “ is extremely fun and absorbing .
I do a lot more than all that as well but Covid puts the whammy on stuff like my hanging out at the central coast, Reno and Monterey. I had to sell my ski boat, ebikes , environmental sciences home electronics lab, home nuclear hobby lab , my Harley dyna super glide , most of my music studio etc. most all of that an accumulation over 30 years of retirement. Now I’ve put most of that money in the bank for wifey but I’ve invested in my” workarounds “ too. We can find ways to persevere even in the face of horrendous difficulty if we want .... or we can lie around hurting and whining and feeling sorry for ourselves .... not me buddy , I’m no whiny little $hit ( yet yayahahahaya) ... all of us can find possibilities if we try hard enough. You can do a lot in life to make your APCa life better.
Yea buddy .. notice all the stuff I’m doing is sitting down too yayahahahaya yayahahahaya. I hear you brother .. loving life is primary .. if you stop , what’s the point ...huh .. !
160/102 avg had a 175 last week. I have rested completely today and just got a 130/92. I share your concern Nalakrats and will postpone taking this new meds for a few days and keep monitoring.
Thanks for the feedback. Very helpful indeed. Best Dermot
My cocktail consists of turkey tail mushroom extract. K2. D3 b6 strontium vitamin e. Calcium, pomegranate, turmeric. Saw palmetto berries. Selenium. Cq10. Ginger root. All tweaked over the past 4.5 hrs. After radiation in March PSA is undetectable.... for now.
When I was on Lupron +Zytiga (+Pred) I took a drug called Prazosin: 2 mg in the morning and 5 mg at night. It does 3 things: improves urine flow, lowers BP, and seems to have a benefit in fighting PCa. (nature.com/articles/s41598-...
After a while my doctor added some HCTZ to keep my BP in line. Prazosin is an alpha blocker, and though it might not be the greatest antihypertensive drug out there, the help with LUTS and its anti-cancer properties made me decide to use it. I’ve been taking it for two years now, and it made me a little dizzy at first, but I got used to it. The Nature article claims that it’s especially good with Radiation, but the in vitro research shows that it’s pretty strong against prostate cancer cells in general.
When I finished my two years of Lupron and Zytiga my blood pressure got a little better, so now I just take 2 mg of Prazosin in the morning and 2mg at night, plus HCTZ.
I was on lisonopril and amlodopine before PCA diagnosis and after. Had taxotere chemo and then decapeptil adt. main SE since was edema of legs, eventually sorted this out by swapping amlodopine for lercanidipine. last 3 months been on Xtandi as well. Blood pressure rose but not above guidelines. Hope that helps.
i have been taking Lisinopril and Amlodipine for 25 years with no side effects that i can associate with it. Have had PCa since July,2015 and am still on AS.
Morning, I have been on it for some seven months and had some minor side effects. Mainly some hot flashes, which are getting less and less. Some fatigue but one can combat that by staying active and exercise.
I've been taking amlodipine for some years. Minimal side effects, but I'm on a bucket load of other heart meds as well. It is considered to be well tolerated by most patients.
Amlodipine is a calcium channel blocker and while it can lower BP, has not been shown to be very good at reducing cardiovascular adverse events (which is the whole point of managing high BP). So it is not a top line choice as a first line drug for hypertension. ACE or ARB or diuretic or Beta blocker are all better. Amlodipine is okay as an add-on to one or more of these if further reduction of BP is needed.
My BP was well controlled on losartan until I tried venlafaxine for hot flushes. Then it soared and stayed high for over2 months despite stopping it immediately. It took added chlorthalidone and amlodipine to the losartan to control it. Finally reset and I’ve stopped the amlodipine. No adverse side effects noted while on it. Something like losartan, an ARB, is better first line choice for many in my opinion.
I had a bad experience with Amlodipine. I developed blood clots in my left leg and had to stop immediately. I looked up the drug and apparently it had been implicated in at least four cases identified, reported separately, on the Internet. I spoke to a friend who is a retired pharmacist and he said the mechanism for reducing blood pressure works on the peripheral arteries in the lower leg. He agreed that it is a possibility that the Amlodipine caused my blood clot. I took Eliquis for a year and the clot was dissolved.
I have two relatives who took lisinopril and had problems with it causing a dry cough and sinus congestion. I had read research on lisinopril and it included references to the side effects. Both relatives stopped using it and the symptoms went away.
One seldom-reported but quite common adverse effect I've often noticed in my office with calcium channel blockers is an overgrowth of gum tissue--not so severe nor so fibrous as seen with sodium dilantin--a spongy hyperplastic appearance that bleeds easily. Not so severe that I rush patients to tell their doctors to get them on another antihypertensive, but I have them mention it.
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