What You Need to Know About Advanced Prostate Cancer

Now I’m not a big movie watcher but I do remember William Hurt in the movie Kiss of the Spider Woman. I was a very young kid and it was one of my favorite movies to watch. I also remember William Hunt in the series Kojak with Telly Savalas, who may or may not have inspired me to shave my head.

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EPISODES NOTES

And if you haven’t heard William Hurt passed away recently due to terminal prostate cancer that metastasized to the bones. According to his son, he had been suffering from excruciation pain. As sad as it is to reflect on William Hurt’s death this way, it is a solid reminder of how precious life is and how important your health is, and in this article, I am going to take a look at advanced bone metastases and prostate cancer. 

What is Advanced Prostate Cancer

There are numerous categories of advanced prostate cancer and the diagnosis is not just cancer that has spread. When a man gets a prostate biopsy and that biopsy results show, a Gleason score of anything greater than eight, that is considered advanced prostate cancer.

Another example is that if a man gets prostate cancer, has it removed and under the microscope when looking at it, there are positive surgical margins with evidence of cancer in the bladder neck, near the bladder Seminole vessels, lymph nodes in the pelvic region, that is considered prostate cancer. 

if there’s evidence of bone metastasis, that’s also considered advanced prostate cancer including metastasis anywhere else in the body, that is considered advanced prostate cancer. 

How Do I Reduce Pain from Advanced Prostate Cancer

As I mentioned earlier at the beginning of this article, actor William Hurt was in excruciating pain due to bone metastasis and in extreme cases, bone metastases can cause a lot of pain. And with prostate cancer, the primary areas where prostate cancer metastasizes and has bone metastasis always causes pains. 

In my years practicing, there are times a patient comes in and we only know he has bone metastasis for prostate cancer because we saw it in a bone scan but oftentimes, it causes no pain or can cause mild to moderate pain. So to address William Hurt and the pain he was going through, it could be that he was avoiding taking opioids when he became sober years ago which made the pain so excruciating for him during his final days. 

Now you may be reading this thinking that how do you reduce pain as it relates to bone metastasis from prostate cancer especially if you’re not taking any sort of pain killers. Well, as most of you know, many people seek me out for natural approaches to their cancer. Now, I want to state that I am not against any medical treatment for prostate cancer and at times, they are necessary. But in my experience and within my health, I prefer to seek alternative routes. There are times when taking pharmaceuticals is needed or taking hormone therapy will help with their pain and I do suggest they look into the treatment especially if their PSA’s are very high. 

Some treatments I like as it relates to bone metastasis from prostate cancer are curcumin which is a botanical from the turmeric root and is a strong anti-inflammatory. Willow bark is another one and is also an active ingredient in aspirin. Willow bark is an excellent natural pain reliever. 

The bottom line is oftentimes, many of my patients with bone metastases do well with botanicals. I recommend taking a look into it. 

Acupuncture also works very well to reduce pain. It does a great job of releasing many of the natural opioids in the body and endorphins in the body.

Exercise and Bone Metastases

I have seen many medical practitioners say that you shouldn’t exercise because they don’t want you to risk getting bone cancer. I couldn’t disagree more. 

There is so much benefit from physical exercise in men with bone metastasis from prostate cancer than there are side effects. In my 20 plus years practicing medicine, I have never seen a man develop a bone fracture from exercise with bone metastasis from prostate cancer. I’ve never read any sort of literature that states exercise is discouraged with bone metasises. If you look at the scientific literature, it does suggest physical exercise both weight and aerobic. 

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