Stopping Hormone Therapy Early for Prostate Cancer

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My husband had radiotherapy and brachytherapy last year to treat locally advanced prostate cancer, stage 3, Gleason 9.

He has to have Zolodex implants every few months and is meant to be on this treatment for just over another 2 years. At his last check up, he told his consultant that he wanted to stop the treatment, he has done a lot of research and the data shows there is not much difference between being on it for one year or three. Consultant agreed that he could stop treatment in a few months and they will monitor PSA levels, if they start to rise again, he will have to go back on to the treatment.

He is a shell of the man he was, I thought hormone treatment just took the sexual side away but it has wrecked him. He has no energy, get up and go or enthusiasm. He is snappy, low and miserable. I'm trying so hard to support him and will support his decision to stop the treatment but it is also scary. Has anyone else been in this situation? He can't go on feeling like this and it is putting a lot of strain on us. But I'm scared of the cancer coming back, I know he has got to try and see but didn't know if anyone else had come across this situation before please?

Thank you for reading.

src60 over 1 year ago

Hi Jai1 and welcome to our community.

My experience with stopping a cancer treatment was rather more dramatic since my wife first treatment was stopped due to severe complications.

It is very difficult for anyone though for anyone who might think there loved one is not doing what we think is for the best. It is so hard isnt it and it might help you to look through Your feelings when someone has cancer as it might help you find peace with his decision.

<<hus>>

Steve

Pete or Stan over 1 year ago

Hey Jai1,

That sounds really tough. I'm sorry you are having to deal with all that.

I don't know anything about prostate cancer, but I recall looking at the curves for my wife's cancer and realising that the difference between treatment and not treatment for someone in her situation was not really that significant. And there was a point where I decided that I would stop encouraging her to have treatment because it was too debilitating for her. It sounds like your husband is taking responsibility and making decisions along with the medical team about his treatment and that is a good thing. It can be hard for you - but it also means that you don't have to carry the weight of responsibility.

It is really hard being a carer. We want to fix the person we are caring for but we can't - we just have to do our best to support them and hope that treatment has the desired effect. And, while they are dealing with their own trauma, treatment and exhaustion, our people can become difficult to handle and we aren't having the conversations with them that we used to. We are having to work really hard in the present while constantly worrying about the future.

Have either of you had counselling? Fi refused point blank and used to get quite cross with me when I went for counselling (she saw it as me giving up!) but I found it immensely helpful to be able to go and talk to someone about how I was feeling. It helped me to carry on dealing with an otherwise impossible situation. There may also be other support services in your area - places where you can just go for a chat or to get advice. A lot of people on here talk about https://www.maggies.org/ - though I don't have any direct experience.

So... there's lots of things that you can't control, but you can keep loving him and caring for him. All you can do is keep doing your best - and that is a heroic task.

Pete

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