well i had to stop the prednisone and abiratrone due to high liver enzymes but doc wants to resume at half dosage..soon..saying all of that, wife questions whether i need to be on these meds for 3 years as doctor requested.They have bad side effects..any experiences out there...
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Laguy01
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I am Firmagon shot every 28 days, 250 mg Abiraterone, 5 mg Prednisone + 5 mg Tadafil. However, I am taking a reduced amount of Abiraterone and take it with breakfast and then Prednisone right after it. The absorption of the medicine is the same as 4 according to the studies. So you might be able to tolerate it better. I will be on this regiment for 9 months to a year
Yes, plenty on here are on hormone therapy with a variety of drugs, combos of those same drugs, or often one at a time. It all depends on your condition and prior treatment and other factors, but very common. And yes, everyone hates the side effects, although they can be mitigated/minimized or overcome.
Abiraterone without prednisone causes cortisol problems. There are alternatives -- eg methylprednisolone, prednisalone. Prednisalone is said to be used when prednisone causes liver issues. Ask Dr. G00gle.
I declined LHRH treatment and went with an intermittent Casodex therapy.
I will soon be starting my sixth year with this approach.
I my opinion, Lupron is an excellent first treatment, which knocks the PSA and cancer down, but it is not good to use on a continuous basis due to the risk of pushing the patient into hormone-resistant disease.
Also, eliminating all testosterone and estrogen on a long-term basis is a bad idea IMHO.
Dr. Bob Liebowitz came to similar conclusions and avoided extended or repeated Lupron treatments.
The only"advice" I can offer is that you find Kaplan-Meier diagrams for any treatment you are considering and consider your "odds" of survival going forward.
I am attaching two K-M diagrams-- which show [to me] that there is no survival benefit to extending Lupron especially given the serious side effects.
Wth Casodex you just have to deal with the gynecomastia.
The first K-M comes with the Casodex FDA sheet and shows that using a Lupron/Casodex protocol, 43% had survived at the 5-year mark. The second K-M comes from the AVOCAT study which shows that in Casodex monotherapy 57% were still alive at the 5-year mark.
I was given a six month eligard injection prior to expected external beam radiation treatments. I went in a different direction and got full gland HIFU ablation instead, from an out of state urologist. My local urologist recommended that I continue eligard for two years. Nope. I rejected that at age 66. Besides the sexual dysfunction I wanted to evaluate the efficacy of that HIFU treatment as soon as possible. That was eight years ago. l have not been on eligard since then but have been taking dutasteride recently. I was lucky. Your circumstances are different.
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