Michael's Story

Ethnicity
White British
Age
70-79
Work
Retired
Sexual Orientation
Straight
Geography
South East
Relationship status
Married/In a Civil Partnership

Chemotherapy

Tips and advice for any sexual side effects of treatment

Ensure your partner is sympathetic.

How this treatment impacted my life the most

Stopping physical activity, e.g. badminton

If I had to do it all over again, would I choose the same treatment?

Not sure

Why did I give this answer?

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.

Chemotherapy

How this treatment impacted my life the most

Relief that I was being treated.

If I had to do it all over again, would I choose the same treatment?

Yes

Why did I give this answer?

Because it worked

Hormone Therapy (injections)

How this treatment impacted my life the most

Impossible to disassociate this from the other treatments

If I had to do it all over again, would I choose the same treatment?

Yes

Why did I give this answer?

It works

Hormone Therapy (tablets)

How this treatment impacted my life the most

Fatigue, hot flushes.

If I had to do it all over again, would I choose the same treatment?

Yes

Why did I give this answer?

It worked, and continues to work.

Radiotherapy

How this treatment impacted my life the most

Seems to have made urgency and frequency of peeing worse.

If I had to do it all over again, would I choose the same treatment?

Not sure

Why did I give this answer?

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.

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