Radiotherapy

Hello Night Bird, my husband did not have surgery but went down the RT/HT route. During the RT (Feb/March 2022) he had a greater sense of urgency to pass urine. This has eased substantially but sometimes when he needs to 'go' he has to 'go' quickly!!! He has never been incontinent. He had some abdominal bloating and pain during the RT but this was helped by adhering to lactose and gluten free and then slowly reintroducing them into his diet.

HTH

Hi Nightbird

I am currently considering the side effects of RT because I anticipate treatment soonish.

On reading your post it occurs to me that perhaps you should rephrase your question to ask about 'salvage radiotherapy'.  Your husband would not be dealing with RT as a single mode of treatment (if we exclude HT) as some on here but as an adjunct. to RP. 

My BIL had salvage RT over 9 years ago and it has been highly successful with no continence issues.  He was quite fastidious with Kegel exercises prior to the RT.

Dedalus

Thanks so much - it’s not going to be easy as they recommend drinking 2 litres of water after the sessions.

I’ve already introduced a high anti inflammatory diet but he loves bread ‍ I’ll have to find a good gluten free option.

thanks for the advice.

Hello Dedalus

To be honest I’m not sure what his treatment will be until tomorrow.  We live in Spain so things might be different here?  all the oncologist said was that he would need approx 25 bouts every day excluding weekends.  When I asked about HT, she said it’s possible.

I can say for certain that he should have had a PET scan in the beginning as his tumor was peaking outside of his prostrate.  The surgeon was more aggressive on the left side but if he’d had the scan it would have indicated how far he should have gone.

Thanks so much for the info

Nightbird

Hi Kerrie.

I have found another paper for you, specifically on incontinence, which seems to indicate that the level of continence achieved post prostatectomy is an indication of what level of continence can be achieved post radiotherapy but that there is a better outcome with Salvage Radiotherapy as opposed to Adjuvant Radiotherapy. Possibly one question to ask tomorrow is whether going onto ADT for a short period of time and delaying radiotherapy would improve his long term chances of having continence control.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8269132/

This is so helpful, thank you so much 

Re the Gluten Free. My wife has found Maize bread in France and in certain places here. Great tasting bread with virtually no gluten. I was very concerned about RT side effects but after 20 treatments and 4 months later, I feel fortunate to be OK apart from occasional urgency, but that can be managed sticking to the adage, " A wiseman goes when he can, a fool goes when he has to ". Good luck.

Re the Gluten free. We live in Greece and have a problem getting anything out of the ordinary. I am gluten intolerant and have managed to find a recipe which works most of the time and is a good base for many breads, including Hot Cross buns (with a bit of variation). If you can find a source of gluten free flour ( ours is a combination of maize and rice with a little bit of potato) then I can pass on the recipe for you to try.

My husband had 33 sessions of EBRT 76Gy,  over 3 years ago and has no problems with the waterworks, but he has not had a prostatectomy.