More Some Side Effects of Prostate Radiation that Oncologists Kind of Tell you About; or, Welcome to the Land of Lupron (Pt II)…
Edward Munch. The Scream
While you’re receiving Lupron (aka Testosterone Deprivation Therapy) and for the 3-6 months post while your body is recovering, you will experience loss of libido and impotence. Once your testosterone levels return to your baseline, there’s a 50% risk of accelerated decline in erectile function from the prostate radiation (as you get older, it is normal to expect decline in erectile function). The short answer is your erectile function will likely be worse after treatment, but how much worse is hard to say. Most patients who receive short-term Lupron do recover, but their erections may not be as strong and they’ll often need to use (or use more) medication for ED. So, don’t expect your oncologist to come up with some “magic bullet” (no pun intended though your urologist might suggest Alprostadil a urethral suppository used to treat men who have erectile dysfunction).
Regardless, with that knowledge in hand, I did what I shouldn’t have done and that was watch YouTube videos that discussed the horrors of being treated with Lupron. I won’t go into all of them, but if the Reader has nothing else to do and is bored with reading Stephen King stories and watching M. Night Shyamalan movies, search for Lupron videos on YouTube and see if you can sleep. They kind of make “Children of the Corn” bedtime reading for kids. After watching one too many of those videos, I was ready to rip out my own prostate, but being averse to the sight of blood (especially my own), I “manned up to my cancer,” returned to the oncologist, dropped trou and got my butt injected. At first, I didn’t really notice much happening, but about six weeks after the radiation treatment ended, the Lupron really kicked in and the most notable things I began to feel or fear were: 1) hot flashes; 2) low libido/ED/penile atrophy; 3) midnight pissing marathons; and 4) mood swings and depression, all of which I’ll chat about in another post. For the time being, let this image of being chemically castrated linger with you for a while.