My post-op PSA is non-zero and rising.

My uro says that if/when I hit 0.4 he's going to initiate hormone therapy.

My understanding is that HT wipes you out, makes you fat and stupid, and makes your morning hell. It is recommended that we make lists.

I don't want to go there, but he tells me that it is possible to fight against the lethargy. I could get an elliptical trainer or something like that. He has a 90-something patient on HT who goes swimming everyday and is as lively as a pot of popping corn. So nothing to be afraid of. So he says.

To the people on here, I am asking this:

Has anyone here with an active lifestyle, healthy and strong at the beginning of HT managed to maintain an acceptable level of activity? Go to work. Carve the turkey -- all of that?

That's what I'm asking

F8
Your post is inspirational. I've been working out daily to lose weight and get in shape for my most probable date with ADT and SRT after reaching .2 five months post op as a 70 yo gl9 stage pt3b. I don't want life to suck until I go toes up!
Bob

I've been on Lupron for about 6 years.....I have plenty of energy...I walk 2-3 miles every day, plus workout on a rowing machine, stair stepper another 30 minutes a day. Exercise begets energy !! What I don't have is muscle mass or a libido !! I do have hot flashes but tolerable. Considering the alternative...I'll take the hormones!!

All right then. It is possible. Thank you for your testimonials and I'm hoping hard that when it's my turn I can return in kind. Despite my cynicism I will take it on when it's time.

thanks again.

Let's see. There is a list.

My complaints:
- I have many long (hours long) meetings. I can get to the end of one and have no clue what customer we are talking about, but I make a point to write like a banshee early in the meeting so I can look back at my notes five hours later to see why I'm on the phone. Spoiler alert - that was not a Friday funny, it is the harsh reality.

- I have gone to the store multiple times in the same day to buy the same thing, gotten home, put it away, then gone back later in the day to buy it again. Sometimes I can see the pattern from my toll bills. Real pity is that sometimes it is 40 mile trips. Hell on the gas bill.

- I discovered last night that I have not opened a statement / balanced my checking account since November of 2011. I have no clue how much money I have.

- I cry and sob in horror movies, because they treat the vampire so badly.

- My hot (no, HOT) cute girl next door asks me to be the arm candy at parties, as she knows I am no risk to anyone.

- I got the old calculator out, as I can't remember how to use the calc function on my cell phone.

- I really do have my password on a sticker under the keyboard, because there is no hope of remembering what / where it is.

- I will eat any bag of Kettle cracked pepper chips that is in the house right after the late night talk shows, and not know it until I find the empty bag in the trash the next day.

- If I walk less than five miles a day, it's a day I gain five pounds.

It goes on. But, it beats looking at the inside of a coffin lid.

I jus hav me HHHTTTT vakacion and I no stew pid

Mel

The consensus is that .2 twice in a row is a trigger point. I was .1 at two months and .2 at five months post op. I have a call scheduled with my Johns Hopkins surgeon in ten days to discuss next steps. I know he thinks ADT for three months then SRT for pt3b cases like mine so I expect to start ADT in a month or so. I'm now recovering from shoulder replacement surgery and hope to be in decent shape by mid April after 12 weeks of PT.
Question : is there anything that can be done about muscle mass deterioration ??? Like weight lifting?
Bob

So the only good news about hormone therapy is that you get to live longer but that the living longer is not anywhere near as good as the life that brought you here. So it's a choice between quality and quantity.

How's the song go? I'm here for a good time, not a long time. Sure most of us here remember that song. We were kids, right? We didn't wake to the reaper with his glowing ruby eyes and broken toothed grin, licking his disgusting fat juicy lips.

Do you ever feel that you're settling for a shadow of life?

I think it's clear that hormone therapy will never cure us. It will just slow everything down and take the sparkle out of what's left.

How is that not a fair evaluation?

havanon said...
So the only good news about hormone therapy is that you get to live longer but that the living longer is not anywhere near as good as the life that brought you here. So it's a choice between quality and quantity.

How's the song go? I'm here for a good time, not a long time. Sure most of us here remember that song. We were kids, right? We didn't wake to the reaper with his glowing ruby eyes and broken toothed grin, licking his disgusting fat juicy lips.

Do you ever feel that you're settling for a shadow of life?

I think it's clear that hormone therapy will never cure us. It will just slow everything down and take the sparkle out of what's left.

How is that not a fair evaluation?

What you say may be somewhat true about the medical aspects but not the psychological.

Pre PCa and pre-Lupron, I took a lot for granted and just went through the motions sometmes. Post Lupron despite the PCa I have a new outlook on life, valuing every day and relationship.

I have heard a lot of men say the same thing, if it does not kill you it makes you stronger.

It helps in my case that I no longer have hot flashes, but like others have posted no libido and more girly fat is what Arnold would call it.

LupronJim

It varies by individual both the kind and duration of the side effects. I have been very fortuante, no fatigue despite Testosterone <003 and no back pain despite Oligo metastasis.

Some guys are just the opposte and suffer from day 1 til they finally are able to go onHT vacation. It's good that my SE's are low since my medical onco since my medical onco says I am to be on HT continuously due to the mets.

JerryL for example was told he could go on IHT even though he has mets.

One thing I think helped is very high doses of vitaimin D-3 (10,000IU) with K-2 and calcium but only do that after you have your serum D measured via normal blood test.

Mine is still on low end of normal in mid 40's where normal range is

serum D [30-100] 46.4 in Jan 2014 43.5 in Oct 2013

LupronJim

re Quality of Life vs Length of Life:
I've been on Lupron for over 2 years. It does have serious side effects which do somewhat diminish QOL, but the alternative (expedited death) is SO-O-O-O much more severe. I'll deal with the ADT SE's for now, as the Lupron is doing its job of keeping this disease at bay. Maybe, down the road, I can try stopping the ADT (I'd love to!), but not at the cost of rapid disease progression.
Everyone deals with this differently. As I tell my friends, "I'm still here!".
Bob