Diet for strong bones.

I'm not much up on chemotherapy, but I wasn't aware it was detrimental to muscles and bone.

This is more a side effect of hormone therapy (injections, not Bicalutamide by itself).

For bones, you need all of:
• Calcium
• Vitamin D3
• Exercise which stresses bones

There's also a more recent suggestion of:
• Vitamin K2 (but not if you're on some blood thinners)
which apparently helps to route calcium to bones, rather than lining blood vessels which you don't want.

If you have been found to have osteoporosis (though a DEXA scan or unexpected bone fracture), you would probably be offered a Bisphosphonate drug too, which switches off the body's normal bone recycling process.

You should ask your clinicians about these. In some cases, you may have other conditions which prevent you taking Calcium or Vitamin K2.

For muscles, you need resistance exercise (which is different from the exercise for bones, although some things like jogging do both).

Gym sessions which do the right exercises are supposed to be rolled out for prostate cancer patients, and I know these are running in some areas. Ask your CNS or consultant (or even GP).

Bicalutamide is one of the various hormone therapy drugs - your son may be prescribed a different one - which acts somewhat specifically so has a different side effect profile from the ones which have a blanket effect of shutting down testosterone production.

It sounds like he's on Zoladex (implant) and Abiraterone? You take Bicalutamide for a month when starting Zoladex to protect against the Testosterone flare, but that's too short a time to have any side effects from the Bicalutamide. You take a low dose steroid with Abiraterone, to compensate for it also stopping your adrenal glands own steroid production.

I can't answer chemo questions - someone else here might but also check with the clinicians doing the chemo.

Edited by member 05 Aug 2023 at 20:03  | Reason: Not specified