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back / kidney pain
Hi all and thank you for having such a wonderful and informative website.I am a 55 yo male and had surgery last October to remove my bladder cancer, it was caught early and was stage 1 and superficial. i had my 6 weekly sessions of BCG and now just done my 4th monthly treatments of 12. At this stage i have all the common side effects which sucks but i can deal with, the biggest problem is the back pain i am having. My cancer was located around the valve / flap of the ureter that allows urine to pass from the kidney to the bladder so that flap had to be removed, now i always have pain when i urinate but i can deal with that but when i get me BCG the pain is so severe i don’t know if i can continue, i also have a very enlarged prostate don’t know if this has something to do with it. Any info would be welcome>
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3 Replies
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It could indeed have everything to do with what might be called referred pain. I’m getting started with the BCG treatments soon, but my prostate was the original reason for seeking urological treatment after have taken appropriate drugs to reduce the size of my prostate for years. I’m probably going to delay, and maybe not have, the BCG treatments until the BPH is taken care of. Talk to your doctor.
Peace be with you. -
Thank you for your response, im having my cystoscopy in 3 weeks time so hoping all is good the last time i had it 2 small tumors had returned but after a biopsy they turned out to be non cancerous. i dont mind having the BCG treatments but will definitely talk to him about the dosage but i just wish he would explain it better to me why i get the back pain, from having spoke to other people it seems to be the same pain men suffer with kidney stones but i dont know why the BCG triggers it. Again thank you for your quick response you are doing a wonderful service>
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So sorry to hear of your pain and discomfort. But you DO have some options. First, it is possible to significantly reduce the dose of BCG used. It has been shown that as little as 10% of the initial dose can be effective. (In fact, there is no “scientific” reason for the initial doses..that is just how the stuff was packaged!) By the time I finished my maintenance doses I was down to 1/3. You may want to ask your doctor about this.
Also, you have received quite a number of the doses recommended. If it really is such a problem that you do not feel that you can continue at all, you probably have received a lot of the hoped-for effects of the BCG. It is YOUR call as to whether you continue treatment.
Hope things get better for you.
Sara Anne
Diagnosis 2-08 Small papillary TCC; CIS
BCG; BCG maintenance
Vice-President, American Bladder Cancer Society
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