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Aloha Don,
It does not matter what type of EBRT (or seeds) was used, all radiation does cause damage to healthy tissue. Whether or not the healthy tissue can recover depends on the dose it received. Radiation treatment is "designed" to specifically deliver a sufficient dose to the PCa to do as much damage to the cancer cells without delivering so much dose to healthy cells that the health cells can't recover. In many cases, the healthy cells get too much and can't recover. Very much like pushing the envelope a bit too far. Before treatment I very much believed what I was told, "healthy cells will recover".
As you read the stories on this site, you see that healthy cells do not always recover. You were lucky to only have minor damage, and I hope that in the future you will not notice any further damage. Many do have serious damage that shows up years after treatment.
My healthy cells took 2.5 years after treatment to begin to disintegrate. From April 2010 to March 2011 the bleeding, clots (& Pain) got pretty bad. In Oct 2010 we decided to have Suprapubic catheter procedure, which bypasses the urethra, hopefully giving the urethra a chance to heal. In this case it continued to get worse. The doc only gave me one choice, a uro-ostomy (to bypass the damage to the bladder and urethra). I feel fortunate that men on this site suggested that I look into HBOT. The doc agreed and wrote a prescription. I started mild home HBOT in Jan 2011 and the open wound in my urethra began to show signs of healing after 3 months of 2 hours/day treatment.
I am gaining more and more confidence that this treatment is working. I've cut back on the hours spent in the chamber. Blood, clots, & pain only occur now when I have a UTI, and only for a couple of days. Unfortunately I am getting UTI's several times/month.
So far this mild HBOT has not shown any improvement to the damaged rectum & anus.
Joe
i am going to have radiation therapy soon but my brother had external beam and he kept on jogging hes a runner had no side effects thats 2 years down the road john q
Bear in mind that it takes years, usually over ten (but five in my case) for collateral damage to become evident. I've seen the "burn" marks in my bladder and I'm told there is likely to be fibrous tissue where the prostate and rectum meet.
EBRT is still worth doing though. Despite it causing bladder cancer in my (or so I believe) I wouldn't have changed the treatment. It helped keep advanced cancer under control for five years and counting.
