I’ve been trying to find my way through the new reality of the drug called Orgovyx and its kaleidoscope of side effects. The biggest problems I’m having are weakness (due to loss of lean muscle), fatigue, and a variety of aches and pains.
Weakness showed up right away. I’ve lost a few pounds since I started taking the drug. I dislike my appearance in a mirror as I am getting scrawny and losing muscle tone everywhere. My intention was to accelerate exercise and muscle building before I started on Orgovyx. It didn’t work out that way. I went into it with the backend of a cold and then a second cold, both of which put me on the couch for a couple of days. The procedure to remove the basal cell carcinoma on my head required that I do nothing physically difficult for one or two weeks. Same restriction after the graft, which came one week after the excision. I violated the rules a little bit, but I was still largely sedentary for a month and not feeling well. So the Orgovyx got a head start on me and it has gained ground. Generally speaking, men on ADT drugs cannot build new muscles, but with regular workouts they may be able to maintain existing muscle mass. I’m back in the gym now and sorting out the exercises that I need vs. the ones I can actually do. This leads me to the next subject, fatigue.
For me fatigue is a sense of malaise and the desire to sleep. My metabolism can change in a minute and cause me to lose all motivation. Fatigue is also the agony of walking long distances and the desire to end the effort immediately. I need to look for windows of opportunity to do physical things. I’m hoping to find a pattern in this but haven’t discovered one yet. If I force myself to work through the fatigue period it can screw me up for the rest of the day.
Aches and
pains are everywhere and they come and go. For a while I had a severe pain
under my left rib cage. It immobilized me and I was genuinely scared that my spleen
might rupture or some new illness was blossoming. No one could find a reason for it. I happened to be see my
oncologist last week and he probed my abdomen and found nothing unusual. He
suggested that it might be muscular. I went home and did some upper body exercises
and the pain disappeared. If I don’t do the exercise at least every other day
the pain returns, although less severe. And this is only one month into the
projected 24 months that I should stay on this drug. It's hard for me to be positive about this, especially considering the other cancers that are competing to kill me. It would suck to be miserable for two years and then die of something else.
