Orchiectomy

tonybuxton

Saw my Doctor again and he was quite alarmed by a PSA rise of 2 in only one month. which means it has nearly doubled in 4 months. Now 9.7. He says that I have reccurence and my cancer is obviously agressive.

He says that I should have HT but knows that I can not do so because of the severe side effects and the costs. He suggested Orchiectomy because compared with HT the side effects are very mild. The main one being ER which at my age is a non issue.   However meantime he let me try a daily dose of 50mg Casodex for one month to see if it might bring my PSA down. He gave it a 50% chance. But said 150 mg would be better but unfortunately the higher dose might have the same bad side effects as the HTdid.

Since I had no objection to orchiectomy he suggested to get it done anyway. In conjunction with casodex it would be whats called a CAB? (complete androgen blocker) which is the best option for my situation.

If I was younger I would be appaled at the idea of orchiectomy. But right now it does not bother me one bit. The doctor assured me that it is avery simple operation and inexpensive.

Any comments would be appreciated

VascodaGama

Orchiectomy

Tony

I am glad for knowing that you will treat your recurrence. In any case I am not sure if orchiectomy is free from the unpleasant side effects you have experienced with HT. Our friend survivor Rakendra did orchiectomy and may give you some advice. He also lives in Asia (The Philippines) and he started Ht at the age of 81 years old similar to you. He has gone through the same “steps” you are tracing but he seems to be “fitter”.
In his previous posts he did comment about the negative effects of orchiectomy. You may mail him via CSN to find about details.
Here are some of his threads that may help you to draw conclusions;

http://csn.cancer.org/node/259532
http://csn.cancer.org/node/264824
http://csn.cancer.org/node/257199
http://csn.cancer.org/node/262790
http://csn.cancer.org/node/264453

Here is a list of old threads discussing Orchiectomy;

http://csn.cancer.org/forum/126/search?body=Orchiectomy&title=

I hope you manage to hold the bandit in its tracks.

Best wishes for 2014.

VG