Hormone Therapy issues

I don't have any mets that they've managed to find so far, although my PSA is certainly high enough it would not be a surprise, but they have looked quite hard as a consequence. However, losing bone calcium is a side effect of HT, in particular, loss of testosterone (and menopause with loss of estrogen in women). More strictly, bones lose calcium all the time as part of the replenishment process, but the replacing doesn't happen much without testosterone/estrogen. I don't know what impact bone mets have on it.

I am not prescribed any calcium, but I self-medicate one Adcal-D3 tablet daily, before exercise. Normally, these would be prescribed 2 a day for osteoporosis patients, which adds up to the recommended daily intake of Calcium and vitamin D3, so I'm on half that dose. In my reading up on calcium loss in HT, the absence of testosterone means that bones were only likely to take up calcium when stressed, e.g. exercise, and plenty of vitamin D3 is available. The other thing is that sweating uses calcium (something to do with driving the sodium ions into the sweat glands), so you want to make sure you aren't short of calcium when sweating, or your body will "borrow" calcium from the bones, but under HT, will struggle to put it back later as a normal body would.

For anyone who is interested in Adcal-D3, although normally a prescribed medication, it doesn't require a prescription but you will need to ask the pharmacist for it. You should also check your doctor is happy for you to take it as it is contra-indicated for some medical conditions and other medications, and screwing up your body's calcium levels can be serious. When I asked about taking it, my GP offered to prescribe it, but I said I was happy to buy it (costs less than a prescription fee, unless you buy the large box).

Thanks for the info on hot flushes. I searched, but I couldn't see any posts where people said how quickly they start.