Between March and July 2022 I had six rounds of Docetaxel + Carboplatin and I dont seem to recover ,mainly fatigue. Can not bring myself to some decent level of energy.
my pre treatment Karnofsky index was 90-100 , now it is 70-80 😕
I'm also doing Lupron shots and Nubeqa which of course contribute to the lack of energy.
best to all
my husband had the same chemo cocktail as his first line of treatment as part of triplet therapy. He’s 48 and had six sessions and it was pretty awful. He’s NOT back to himself and he finished chemo end of October. That said in November he began 38 radiation treatments. His body is exhausted and while he’s getting some energy back it’s like two steps forward and 3 steps back at the moment. Patience. Exercise and stress relief is crucial.
Check your expectations against a couple of realities. It is quite unlikely that you will or even can ever return to your "before" condition. There's at least three reasons why.
First, the cancer is a major assault on your body, and your body ramped up some major systems to fight it; we can never be certain how effective your body's response was (clearly not enough) but be assured that it fought back.
Second, cancer isn't so simple, we talk of PCa being in that walnut-sized space below the bladder, but never know how much has escaped, where it went, how effective our bodies have been in fighting it off. And even if cancerous cells are not escaping, the fact of knowing you have cancer takes its toll mentally.
Third, most of us find we have PCa in our 60s when we're into the third third of our lives. Remember those 50th birthday cards that said "it's all downhill from here", well they were about 30 years late. We peaked in our 20s, the downhill slope is getting steeper in our 60s and 70s. So in the year or so you and your doctors have been fighting PCa, your body has continued down slope -- it's called aging.
// All of that understood, we can bounce back (and it helps to aggressively work at it. Solid, enjoyable, and useful lives will return -- they'll just be different and in some ways a bit less than before.
Thanks for your answer but I think you misunderstood my question.
After almost 5 years of fighting PC I'm well aware about all the things you mentioned.
My questions was related to recover from chemotherapy and not if I'll ever be the same as before discovering the PC as you may see in my original post : "return to your "normal" pre chemotherapy" which in my case happened after almost 4 years of ADT, AR, RT
You are correct, I didn't specifically address chemotherapy. My thoughts on it are quite similar to my second point. I didn't have chemo for PCa but I have for two other cancers. Chemo like the cancer itself is rarely simple with a single effect. It is typically a cocktail of poisons which the doctors hope will be effective against your particular personal form of the disease. Each of us individually reacts in our own individual way to each element of the chemo. So the chemo might be effective and kill off the offensive cancer cells, and at the same time might not, and at the same time might be having a side-effect somewhere else in your body. Let me use myself as an illustration.
My PCa is cured, 15 years ago. But I also have two forms of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I also have rather significant peripheral neuropathy (PN) which is derivative from MGUS an autoimmune bone marrow disease. A common treatment for my Lymphomas is RCHOP a cocktail of five drugs. For me the oncologist omitted the "O" drug because it is known to cause and aggravate PN, so I got R-CHP. (Using cocktails of several drugs is common for many cancers as the drugs are found to be synergistic.) RCHOP is typically administered in 6 infusions spaced 3 weeks apart. It worked -- too well; for each of the first three doses my body's reaction was massive (hospital, near death upon arrival). The cocktail was adjusted and re-adjusted. I survived the next two doses and tests showed the cancer had become undetectable, so we skipped the 6th dose. Along the way the cocktail's negation of my immune system (an intended action) and destruction of my gut biome (not intended) allowed me to pick up a nasty "hospital infection" that ended up requiring fecal transplants.
OK? Different cancer, different chemo drugs, same process: attack the cancer cells, destroy them and their replication processes, hope that you don't cause other problems in the body, control and treat them if you do. And remember the docs are treating us as individuals, no homogeneity amongst us. So, after chemo you don't get over it, you live with the consequences of the cancer and the collateral ones too, some good, some not so.
Sorry to say, I agree with "BerkshireBear's" assessment.
There is general fatigue every day from the Lupron. It will be with me for the rest of my life as I will likely not be stopping ADT.
Docetaxel caused extreme fatigue. I was basically bedridden for days 3, 4, and 5 after the infusions. That stopped once my six infusions were finished.
How much do you exercise and what kind?
Before chemo I used to swim twice a week and twice a week in a gym (aerobics, resistance).
Now I hardly can bring myself to swim once a week
it’s a dilemma for sure, but by now I’m sure you know that, among many other health benefits, exercise is the one and only guaranteed antidote to treatment caused fatigue.
ANY amount you can do will make a difference, weights/resistance training in particular. Exercising when you can’t seem to ‘bring yourself’ to do it is so profoundly worth it you owe it to yourself to try.
Get a professional trainer if you can at all afford it. Giving in to the fatigue entirely is miserable and only becomes more so.
If there was a magic pill that produced the benefits of exercise it would be the very first one prescribed.
I guess everyone is unique. Last year I allowed my therapies to take control. Gained some weight and was not as energetic as I could be. I was determined to make some changes. Cut out carbs, started hiking, up to 7 miles a day. I've added rowing to the routine. Dropped about 25 pounds. Feel much better. Blood pressure has never been as issue but that too improved.
I did 6 cycles of docetaxel chemo after RARP in 2007. No ADT during or after. It took me exactly two years until I finally felt like myself at 100% again. So for me it was very slow, but my body did recover from it.
I’m 52 and would have moderate fatigue on days 2-5 post each Docetaxel infusion. The two weeks after, I felt basically normal.
I have found, radiation has been much harder on me physically than chemo. I think this is due to the number of sites (prostate / SV, pelvic LNs and right hip socket) and dose of radiation to each as well as how radiation is daily and I only have breaks for weekends / holidays. I never had nausea from chemo but that and GI distress are a daily occurrence for me now. My RO feels that’s likely due to the wide field they are using to irradiate the pelvic lymph nodes and is very normal.
Despite all that, through chemo and radiation I’ve been walking (briskly) about 6 miles a day, every day (I’ve not skipped a single day.). Getting to the gym has been difficult because of fatigue and also concern about not getting flu/ COVID / RSV which is the last thing I need right now. I still do body weight exercises and stretching at home. I think staying active has really helped me.
I disabuse you of your assumption.
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