coming off HT early

Shaun
Note the ages of those who chose IHT. At now 72 if need be IHT would be considered. In my 60's it wouldn't have happened. HT is a tough journey but whilst I had the winning post in sight I carried on even past the planned amount. I don't know if I had come off earlier where I would be now but I'm glad I stuck it out.

Your HT journey like mine might get easier as time goes by.

Ray

Ah okay - well this might help clear your thoughts a little. Standard practice for curative RT for many, many years has been RT with 2 years of HT - it is only recently that a number of oncologists have moved to RT with 3 years HT and the research data suggests that the longer you are on HT the better the outcome but it isn't absolute otherwise all oncos would be doing it. There are a handful of members here that have had curative RT with only 6 months of HT.

You are in an unusual position in that your onco has offered chemo with curative RT/HT so it seems that s/he is at the extreme end of the belt & braces approach anyway. I can only think of one other member here that has had chemo with curative RT so it isn't like there are a lot of other men for you to compare notes with. 

Hi all
Interesting thread, with lots of food for thought. I'm in a similar(ish) position, in that I also want to stop HT 'early'. I had adjuvant RT on prostate bed and lymph node area - I had positive margins and cancer found in one lymph node. I was told that I would be on Bicalutimde for 2 years, but the side effects of fatigue and loss of libido are really getting me down, though it's mainly fatigue that causing me grief.

The onco is up for considering stopping the Bical at 18 months, and says that the RT I had was a new version (only just cleared by NICE) and there is little known about the longer term effects of HT in this situation. My thinking is I really want to stop the HT at the earliest opportunity, but there does seem to be limited knowledge about that. The onco is still looking at this treatment as curative, which I feel for a Gleason 9 is optimistic, but I'll take that curative view anyway!