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Orchiectomy was successful...I think

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Posted 9/2/2016 2:09 PM (GMT -5)
Hi All,
I thought I'd let you know my 64 yr old husband's orchiectomy was (kind of?) successful and has lead to a much better quality of life than the Lupron shots. After his PSA spiked from 1 to 11 in three months with T levels <50, he made the decision to have the orchiectomy on March 1st. He was having major side effects on Lupron and felt pretty lousy overall.
After the orchie procedure and re-starting casodex, his PSA dropped from 11.5 in February (pre-surgery) to 5.7 in April, 4.4 in June and 2.59 this week. The downward trend is great but it still isn't zero.
I wanted to assure others that the procedure is a real option to lifelong hormone therapy. He no longer has the blood sugar spikes, the high BP, neuropathy and the higher risk of cardiac events and fractures that are associated with Lupron. No regrets.
Lately he is experiencing hip pain on one side even though a bone scan on June 14th was clear. Also, his eyes are blood shot most evenings. It started with the left one a couple months ago and now affects both eyes. I'm also noticing it earlier in the day. We don't know if it's cancer related or if it's caused by the casodex, but it doesn't look normal. Has anyone else experienced blood shot eyes?
Posted 9/2/2016 7:02 PM (GMT -5)
You and your husband are to be commended for choosing the Orchiectomy method of ADT..Getting off the Lupron bandwagon with it's side effects and huge expense is very difficult for most stage 4 PC patients to do...While Casodex can be useful two newer drugs Zytiga and Xtandi are perhaps 100 times more effective than Casodex ..Getting your insurance company to approve them may take some work......Best of luck to you..
Posted 9/2/2016 11:03 PM (GMT -5)
Thank you for that mtnwife..hope you get to the bottom of the bloodshot eyes. I would def see an ophthalmologist. Can anyone tell me why the se's would be different between lupron and an orchiectomy? Aren't the se's caused by the low T levels?
Posted 9/3/2016 7:57 AM (GMT -5)

JoJoLA said...
Thank you for that mtnwife..hope you get to the bottom of the bloodshot eyes. I would def see an ophthalmologist. Can anyone tell me why the se's would be different between lupron and an orchiectomy? Aren't the se's caused by the low T levels?


You know, that's a great question. That's what I'd heard all the time I was on hormone therapy, leading me to eagerly anticipate the end of my Lupron sentence.

I've heard people who get orchiectomies will have hot flashes within about 24 hours of surgery. But I don't know how those persist over time.

I was on ADT2 (Lupron+Casodex) for 3 years, off of it now for almost six months. My testosterone was just checked and it's already up to 290, into the bottom of the normal range (>250). So, the ADT2 has definitely "worn off" as far as some degree of testosterone production indicates.

And yet, I still have hot flashes. Two or three at night that wake me up. My MO has no idea why. My last "4 month" Lupron shot was in November of 2015, quit Casodex in March 2016. So, is this some residual effect of the Lupron or Casodex itself? I don't know. They're not suppressing testosterone much anymore, if at all, but why the hot flashes?

The fatigue has improved a lot, but some degree of it persists. Cognitive effects seem to be better too, with my short and mid-term memory becoming more reliable.

So, what's the source of the side effects? Good question.
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