I’m on Lupron/Zytiga/prednisone for a little over two months. I started Zytiga at 1000mg but after less than a month had to drop down to 500mg because of liver problems. Prednisone has been at 5mg. Last Thursday I fainted while fishing (I was celebrating the end of 25 days of radiation to pelvic lymph nodes) and went to the ER. I have a history of high BP but at the ER it was fine. Before fainting (7:30AM) I became very tired, sweating profusely, blurred vision. The doc at the ER said I was dehydrated with heat exhaustion (really? It was early morning). Anyway they gave me a bag of fluids and sent me home. Over the weekend my BP shot up to 170/96 average so I quit taking the Zytiga but kept taking prednisone. I called my MO Monday and will meet her tomorrow. I’m wondering what the next step might be. I’m definitely having problems with Zytiga although it and lupron are definitely working. T is undetectable and psa is 0.2 down from 2.0. Should I ask for a different treatment plan?
Problems with Zytiga?: I’m on Lupron... - Advanced Prostate...
Problems with Zytiga?
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If zytiga is giving you problems you could switch to casodex or xtandi.
The increase in the blood pressure could be caused by Zytiga. Increasing prednisone to 10 mg a day may correct the problem.
Maybe your prednisone dose is insufficient. Talk to your oncologist about increasing the dose.
Similar results for my brother, elevated liver enzymes and blood pressure even with reduced dose. Switched to Erleada 👍🏻
Sorry to hear about this, EK. Being on abiraterone myself, I hope that it is a steroid dosing issue (or steroid type - Zytiga can be used with dexamethasone, too) that will allow you to continue. But liver toxicity with abiraterone is a known issue - especially in early dosing - that seems to resolve itself about 50% of the time. See:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/321...
Good luck. - Joe M.
Don’t give up on abiraterone prematurely. You want all possible mileage out of it since it is working. Try the increased prednisone first. Maybe an easy fix. Save your other bullets.
I had a similar experience with my BP skyrocketing to over 200/100.
Tall_Allen showed me a link to research that indicated the the Prednisone 5 needed to be double to twice daily.
After seeing the research, the doctor upped my Prednisone 5 to twice a day and added Hydrochlorothiazide 25mg once daily to help with fluid retention because my ankles had swollen so much.
Within less that 2 weeks I was back to normal blood pressures and haven't experienced any side effects related to the Prednisone being doubled.
This is the link to my article >>> healthunlocked.com/advanced...
Blessings.
I met with my MO yesterday and she is putting me on 5mg twice daily of prednisone. She is also having me hold off on the Zytiga for a week or so. I hope the increased prednisone rate does not have me too wired to sleep. I’m taking the second dose around 3pm.