I seem to be in a small minority here of men who had bicalutimide as a primary hormone therapy drug before and after radiotherapy. In my case it was 150mg a day for 18 months; my oncologist said that he prefers to prescribe it over the injectable HT because he's found that it's better tolerated.
The HT worked fine, and three years after finishing RT I am (fingers crossed) cancer-free, but the one significant side-effect of bicalutimide is that it causes breast growth and, despite both taking tamoxifen and having breast-bud radiotherapy, I've finished up with a lovely set of breasts 😁. Obviously not the worst thing in the world to happen, but I am somewhat conscious of my new "attributes" and so tend to wear loose-fitting shirts, etc, to make it less obvious.
I happened to notice recently on the NHS website that, although male breast-reduction surgery falls into the category of a cosmetic procedure, the one situation where it can be funded by the NHS is when it's the result of prostate cancer hormone treatment, which is my situation. Consequently I've asked my GP to refer me for potential surgery, which he was happy to do. I'm now awaiting an appointment at the breast clinic at the local hospital which, I must admit, is a sentence I never thought I'd find myself writing!
I was just wondering if anyone else here had gone down that route and, if so, what the outcome had been. Perhaps I'm a pioneer due to the rarity of the use of bicalutimide as a primary HT?
Anyway, I'll keep you posted on the outcome 🙂.
Chris