Hi, I posted back in October that my dad had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer which has spread to the bones. It was discovered after he broke his pelvis going up the stairs.
In the hospital they gave him Degarelix, which he’s done well with and had very little side effects, he wanted to stay on this hormone therapy but there were issues as it’s not licensed in the community, after seeing his consultant he reluctantly agreed he could keep going back to the hospital instead to have it once a month.
We saw the oncologist a week later but my dad said he’d like to just stay on the hormone therapy for now and not start chemo. The oncologist also mentioned the issues getting Degarelix and mentioned my dad should start Prostap, he said Prostap causes tumour flair up initially but to prevent that he would be given tablets to take alongside his first injection. My dad said he wanted to have the Degarelix and we had been told by the other consultant he could.
The nurse was supposed to be sorting it out for him but she wasn’t having any luck arranging his Degarelix injection, so now that it’s the 14th of November (he was due his 2nd hormone therapy on the 10th) he decided to just go with the Prostap and she said she would start him on that treatment today.
When he went for it though, she hadn’t ordered the tablets to prevent the tumour flair up, so my dad refused the injection without them because he was told by the oncologist they were necessary with the first treatment.
The cancers in a number of bones including his sacrum and sternum and he’s worried that a flair up could cause more problems than waiting an extra few days. The nurse said she would look into getting the tablets and get back to us in a few days, she wasn’t happy that he didn’t have the injection today.
With his treatment already being late it’s causing us all a lot of concern. Was it right for him to refuse the Prostap without the pills? It seeme like it might be best to wait until they can give him both, but we know very little about this. Thanks for any advice.