Hot Flushes

Maybe you need to invest in a couple of  plastic unrination bottles.  I have one by my bedside and one soaking in bleach in the utility from the night before.  It is so hard for me to make it to the lavatory in time when I find it difficult to get my bad knee going when I first attempt to get out of bed.  These are a god send.  I have taken one of these away with me when visiting or on holiday for many years wo that I do not have to disturb other people by going to the lavatory a few times a night.

I take Evening Primrose Oil (1 x 1500mg twice per day), Sage Leaves (2 x 285mg twice per day) and Cyproterone Acetate (1 x 50mg once per day) and have conquered the hot flushes totally. I still sweat profusely when exercising hard but that has always been the case for most of my life so I don't count that.

Of course, it may well be a placebo effect, but it works for me.

What Seamus suggests might be a good remedy for the hot flushes.

From what I understand of "flushes", they aren't an actual rise in core body temperature, just a localised dilatation of peripheral blood vessels which makes it very hard to measure any accurate temperature variation.

A better way of measuring it would be to use some device that detects colour variations, like a pulse oximeter or an infra red scanner.

I'm fortunate enugh to have not really experienced hot flushes so can't see any association between them and urination, but don't doubt.your experience.  The coffee cup sounds like showing some intiative on your part.

If it's a problem  being "taken short" in circumstances such as in a shop, Macmillan do supply "toilet cards" which you can show to gain access to staff toillets, for example.

For more information about this   click here

I don't have any suggestions for how to relieve the flushes but I am relieved that I am not the only person who experienced these as none of the nurses had had mentioned them as a possible issue and I could find very little info on line.

I have completed my planned 6 cycles of Chemo and they only affected me after the last one - they are horrible and a bit embarrassing when you turn into a red sweaty mess in a Costa!

When they started, I was getting 3 or 4 of them a day, thankfully they have eased off now and I can only remember one or two in the last week - I'm 3 weeks on from my last treatment.

Hopefully they will go away totally soon.

Hot flushes are usually listed as a side effect of hormone therapy rather than chemotherapy.

If you're looking up hot flushes in relation to chemo, this might be why you're not finding much.

Ah ok thank you - I started that back in Feb and have only had one injection so far (the next one is due next week) which is why I didn't associate the flushes with the hormone treatment, especially as they only started after the 6th chemo cycle.

MacMillan Cards sound a good idea. I keep a urine bottle in my car and have used it with both car doors open on one side. Camping ones are best as they have a screw top unlike the usual Supermarket ones with a leaky clip on top which all seem to be made by the same manufacturers.

I can see why you didn't make the connection.

Unfortunately, if you're having hormone therapy, you may have hot flushes.

Have you not  got a copy of the booklet  by prostatecanceruk.org ? on Hormone Therapy. It mentions Hot flushes and an awful lot more. Briefly says  there are things that are available to treat manage hot flushes by life style changes and Medicines and you should see your Doctor. Complementary cures or  management there is no evidence they work.

Oldtimer has spotted well.

I don't know about a booklet, but this is a link to useful information about hormone theray on the Prostate Cancer UK web site