EBRT Experience

[conbio]

Recently completed my 23 sessions of 2 Gy each - about 2/3 of dose if EBRT was sole therapy. I'm on Lupron for 18 months (6 down), and have brachytherapy in 2 weeks. All in all not too bad for the EBRT - seems it was cumulative within a week and overall. I kept active - climbing 2x a week, lifting 2x a week, and a hike or ski here or there. The biggest pain was having to go in every weekday.

My urinary tract was irritated - but I never had to take the prescribed Flomax, and my bowels were a bit irritated - a bit gassey and cramping, but I never felt like it was a big issue, but was annoying. Only on the last week of treatment did I feel tired enough to miss a couple exercise sessions. Three days after the last session I'm feeling on the upswing. My PSA bumped from .16 to .18 after the process - from irritation and considered stable as interpreted by my medical oncologist. She did note my red blood count was down about 12% - from the radiation - so yea, take a nap!!

I did bake an assortment of 3 dozen biscotti to thank those wonderful radiation nurses. that I gave them after my last treatment :). On to the next phase!!

[TylexGP]

Con bio, Sounds like your doing good! I did HDRBrachytherapy followed a month later by EBRT. My experience was similar. HDR Brachytherapy wasn’t bad a hemorrhoid cushion helps for the first week. After that it was pretty uneventful but I did use the flomax. I am 7 months out from brachytherapy and 6 months out from EBRT and my Bloodcounts are just about normal. Platelets still a little low. I saw a 0.1 increase in my PSA one month post Brachytherapy 0.25 to 0.35. Currently at 0.11 ng/ml.

[jdfamily in reply to TylexGP]

Thanks for your message, I will probably be starting the same regime in a couple weeks. Glad to hear things went pretty good overall

[Aodh]

Delighted to hear your good news. Best wishes for your continuing treatment.

Hugh

[cancerfox]

I didn't notice much additional tiredness from the EBRT over and above what the ADT was already doing to me, but a few days after my brachytherapy I suddenly noticed a big drop in energy level. The brachytherapy also messed up my bowel and bladder quite a bit for a while; you may want to make sure restrooms are available nearby any time you go somewhere after brachytherapy. I gave my EBRT radiation therapy staff 2 pounds of fudge and a thank you card on my last day; in retrospect, maybe it would have been smarter to have given them something before the treatments so that I would have gotten even better support from them. 😆