Ensure your partner is sympathetic.
Stopping physical activity, e.g. badminton
Not sure
Because I have had chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone treatment (which will go on for ever) I have found it difficult to work out which treatment was causing what effects. Although I started off in this questionnaire by stating chemotherapy, many of my answers probably relate more to hormone treatment. I had a good response to the chemotherapy in that some of my tumours shrunk. I think the hormone treatment should be credited for the dramatic drop in PSA, and I am 'happy' to live with the side effects. I am not so sure about the radiotherapy. NB My story is on the yananow.org website, and I have a diagram that I put together in the project in 2020 that led up to the infopool.
Relief that I was being treated.
Yes
Because it worked
Impossible to disassociate this from the other treatments
Yes
It works
Fatigue, hot flushes.
Yes
It worked, and continues to work.
Seems to have made urgency and frequency of peeing worse.
Not sure
As soon as I was diagnosed in 2018 I started hormone tablets and injections immediately, then I had chemotherapy. The hormone tablets were stopped. My PSA dropped dramatically, and the scans following the chemo indicated a shrinkage in the tumors. However my PSA then rose slightly - I was put back on daily hormone tablets (in addition to the 3-monthly injection) and sent for radiotherapy. My PSA dropped back to almost nothing. Obviously, medicine is not a precise science so I cannot be sure about the radiotherapy, but I am unsure as to whether the radiotherapy actually helped - and I feel that my peeing (which had been very good following a TURP in 2010) was made worse by the radiotherapy.
By sharing your experience of prostate cancer on the infopool you can help others. Your experience is valuable as they go through their own journey. Help make the prostate cancer community stronger.
