Firmagon Side Effects

Just like it reduces your libido to the same level it was when you were age 10, it also reduces the size of your testicles to prepubescent levels. HT ain't fun, but the SEs will go away a month or two after you finish it up...

Redwing pretty much has it...These things are not side effects, they are the expected effect of chemical castration which is what ADT is......Bad as it is, it's better than dying...

The medical professionals don't bother to share with us that the general anesthesia for the RP leaves us with about a year of "mild cognitive impairment", then the Pituitary Deprivation Therapy ("ADT") brings on some more "mild cognitive impairment"....among other things.

My boy parts all shrunk up and sucked up into my body cavity right away as my T crashed. All of my body hair fell out and my libido took a very long vacation. I got some nice moobs, lost muscle and stamina, energy and strength. Kept my cuts and lost muscle mass. Over the last 4 years I have gained 15 pounds and then lost 6 of those due to lifestyle modification. My body looked like I aged about 15 years. :barf:

Dripping wet hot flashes, anxiety attacks, bouts of depression and (the most bothersome) twice weekly breakfast nausea attacks. Those really suck. There are many more subtle side effects of pituitary deprivation as well - stuff like 'changes in the lung linings' due to low prolactin, changes to emotional interactions due to lack of oxytocin, water weight gain, fatigue...the list kind of goes on and on.

It took 2 years from the last "6 month" Eligard chemo for me to come back to extremely low normal testosterone. Along with that came a quickly rising PSA, so the chemo just kicked the can down the road a bit for me and it looks like I will be going back on first round chemo pretty soon.

While it sure beats dying rapidly of stage 4 adenocarcinoma, it is indeed very frustrating.

You are not the only artist here, Mark, and yes, the cognitive impairment screws with me as well.

Going for brachy said...
I learned more about prostate cancer and treatments from this board than doctors.

Generally speaking, none of the doctors have direct experience with these treatments and their side-effects. We do, and are willing to share them with anyone who asks!

By the way, one good thing is with my recovering testosterone I've had some recovering strength. I work out twice a week at a local gym, and after about 8 months of consistent weight training I'm almost back to my baseline levels. Just this month I'm back to my previous weight settings on most of the exercises. These are single-set high intensity sets, achieving muscle failure between 8 and 12 reps. It's the Nautilus method, and has always been effective for me.

My job can be a little physical, partly because I choose it to be so. It's a joy to grab 4' x 4' sheets of MDF and hoist them with relative ease. We use them to mount parts for air flow tests, and since I'm so short-handed in my lab I often wrestle them about alone, sometimes with parts mounted to them. Not like it's a big deal, but it's gratifying to feel rather like myself again!

With Firmagon you will reach a castration level of testosterone within a few days. So you do not need to take casodex as you would have to with Lupron.

Regarding your question how much the tumor will shrink - this study reports:
"The optimal duration of neoadjuvant androgen deprivation to achieve maximal prostate shrinkage appears to be 3 months for most prostates, but longer therapy up to 6 months in duration can achieve greater shrinkage in larger glands. A median volume reduction of 31% is achieved regardless of initial prostate size [Langenhuijsen et al. 2010]."

George

Post Edited (George_) : 11/9/2017 1:49:06 PM (GMT-7)

I was on Firmagon for 3 months and Lupron for six months. My urologist told me that the decrease in size of testicle is permanent. That doe not worry me at all. But six months after the last Lupron shot, I still have aches and pains, quite sever sometime.