Body hair loss

Two factors here...

The radiotherapy usually causes loss of body hair where the beam goes through the skin. That's a band around the body from the navel down to the base of the penis. This typically starts about 4 weeks after RT starts. About 8 weeks after the RT finishes, it will probably start regrowing, but apparently it doesn't always regrow.

Hormone therapy will cause loss of body hair acquired at puberty from all over the body. This starts around 4 months on HT. Pubes and beard take a long time (years) to be significantly affected, but will grow slower. On the other hand, male pattern baldness may reverse on hormone therapy and hair regrow there. Hair will regrow after HT finishes when testosterone returns, but that can take a long time depending which HT drugs were used and for how long.

He should have a Testosterone test to find out what his level is. Hot flushes are often the last side effect to go, and might not be directly related to testosterone levels.

If he was on Tamoxifen, that can also cause hair loss (including hair on the head), but usually only at higher doses than used with prostate cancer hormone therapy.

Just to be clear, he had the RT and the decapeptyl, and casodex all on or since December 21. And I'm assuming he will be having some more decapeptyl taking him up to a year or two of HT. If this is the case I'm not too surprised his body hair has gone. It can take a few months for the side effects to come and go. The clinical nurse I would have thought would have been of the same opinion? Body aches also could be a result of the change in testosterone.

You can pretty much view these changes as similar to puberty, perhaps a reverse of puberty or the menopause. There is a lot of adjustment happening in the body so it may take along time. Similarly when he comes of HT it may be a while to get back to normal. It took me nine months before I had an erection.

He too was as hairy as a gorilla :) which is why it’s been a bit if a shock especially when he was thinking things should be getting better 

Thank you for your reply :) I suppose you just want someone to say “oh yeah I had a delayed reaction too” just to feel like you’re not going a little mad :) 

So, his HT ran out in April. It takes some months for Testosterone to return after this, so quite likely he still has no Testosterone. After HT finishes, it's useful to get Testosterone tests with his PSA tests until Testosterone has returned to a stable level, so you better understand what's going on.