Suggest Ways To Manage Pain While Undergoing Radiation For Prostate Cancer

Posted on Thu, 9 Feb 2017

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Thu, 9 Feb 2017 Answered on

Sat, 4 Mar 2017 Last reviewed on

Question : my father has afib and is currently taking Eliquis. He has two nephrostomy tubes and his urologist has said his bladder has basically shut down because of scar tissue from seed radiation for prostate cancer 15 years ago. He has done an exam to determine that there is no bladder cancer and nothing that should be causing pain. he has been in a lot of pain that Tylenol 3 hasn't seemed to help with. the doctor in his rehab center has gotten an ekg to determine whether she should give him methadone for this pain. what else could be causing it and what steps should I take to help remedy the situation?

Answered by Dr. Ilir Sharka (5 hours later)

Brief Answer:
I would recommend as follows:

Detailed Answer:
Hello!

Welcome and thank you for asking on HCM!

Regarding your concern, I would explain that the pain could be caused by different causes:

- metastatic lesions from the prostate cancer
- radiation induced neuropathy.

As he has not urinary bleeding, this indicates that eliquis is not the cause of his pain.

I would recommend performing an abdominal CT scan with contrast or a MRI of this region to exclude possible metastatic lesions that could cause the pain.

If it results normal, I would recommend starting gapapentine or pregabaline for the pain. These drugs are very helpful against chronic neuropathic pain, which is a usual complication of radiation.

You should discuss with his doctor on the above issues.

Hope to have been helpful!

Kind regards,

Dr. Iliri

Note: Get a consultation booked to know more about aging related medical issues. Click here.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar