I am a 22 year survivor of Prostate cancer. Prostate removed, 2 years later. PSA rise, had 37 radiation treatments. Was on Intermittent therapy for years until PSA rise was too quickly returning. Have been on Lupron and Nubeqa for sevearl years now. Psa <,13 but side effects are becoming debilitating.
Taking sleep meds nightly. Joint pain and muscle weakness, brain fog, fatigue daily, sleeping 11 hours a day. Quit statins because they were worsening my joint pain. Hot flashes, of course, but the fatigue, depression and joint pain becoming debilitating.
Wondering if the side effects are caused by Lupron, Lack of T which might be controlled by Orchiectomy, or by radiaton around my plevis. Because the surgeon said he got it all, and didn't I didn't get radiation until 2 years post surgery, therefore my radiation had a much broader area than just the prostate bed. His words; had had to shotgun me.
Was wondering if I had orchiectomy, would my side effects improve without the Lupron shot. Don't mind keeping the Nubeqa.
Any thoughts?
Written by
Rob1053
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Most of the side effects are caused by the lack of testosterone, so it would probably be the same.
You might be able to address the depression and the hot flashes with one medicine-- venlafaxine.
An increase in your exercise regimen might help with the fatigue.
I had the same problem with statins, which is why I switched to pitavastatin. I get it via mail order from India to save costs, but I have to order a month in advance.
Thank you for your response. I had rising PSA before radiation and after. I was on intermittent therapy for as long as I could. The PSA started rising so quickly I had to go to full time adt about 3 years ago but still had not metastasized so castrate sensitive. Riding the tiger.
My experience with ADT (Zoladex and Trelstar) suggest mental health, depression, etc are affected by the drugs activity in the brain besides just low T.
These ADT drugs work by acting on the hypothalamus in the brain basically telling the brain to instruct the testicles to stop T production. My experience has been while these drugs are in the brain they also interact in other ways. Whilst on Zoladex the mental health side effects were brutal with things like panic attacks, irrational behaviour (like uncontrollable laughing) which I had never experienced before.
My 2nd go at ADT was with Trelstar which was not as brutal and I did not have any panic attacks (but did have the laughing). I never suffered crying once in all the time on ADT but 100's of uncontrollable laughing fits. When stopping ADT treatment while the T was still low the mental health effects went away despite low T. I assume this was because the Zoladex/Trelstar was washed out of my body but low T hangs around for a much longer time.
It is my lived experience that in my case the ADT drugs caused other effects in the brain besides shutting down T production. I cant prove it .. but I lived it.
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Lupron and cataracts.
Lupron or orchiectomy
Long term side effects of Lupron? 
Orchiectomy 
