I've been mucking about reading about hormones, agonists, antagonists, and trying to make some sense of what it is I signed up for (willingly, I should emphasize... I just didn't appreciate the complexity of the interactions going on here). And I was casting about for a visual image for an agonist, because I felt like I was leaving the poor agonist out of the picture. So ...brace yourself. It's Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront" asserting that he coulda been a contendah.
Where did that come from? Good question! The Greek background of the word "agonist", which is this
"The word "agonist" comes from the Late Latin agnista, contender, from the Greek agnists, contestant, from agn, contest. An agonist is a chemical contestant or contender."
OK... that wasn't as funny as I thought. Interesting words, these... and a bit confusing as well. I mean, an antagonist is the bad guy in a story, right? And he or she plays against the protagonist. Except not here. It's another example of medical (terminology) humor. HA! It is to laugh! Only it would help for the medical terminology to be somewhat less opaque to the patient side of the equation.
In this venue, the word agonist means "A drug that binds to a receptor of a cell and triggers a response by the cell. An agonist often mimics the action of a naturally occurring substance." (see http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=7835).
And an antagonist does the opposite of the agonist, in that it binds to a receptor of the cell and *blocks* an action by the cell.
Therefore... (maybe I should shout "Eureka!!!" here)
- Antagonist: The bicalutamide I'm taking (an androgen antagonist) blocks the response the cell would normally have to testosterone. So, this keeps cells like the prostate cancer from receiving any testosterone, which helps keep the tumor from growing initially when the other piece of the picture comes in. Keep Maura Lee in mind! Here she is in B+W...
- Agonist: The Trelstar (a luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LH-RH) agonist) triggers a reponse by the cells in the pituitary gland, causing the testicles and the adrenal glands to produce testosterone until the pituitary runs out of hormones and ... testosterone production goes the way of manufacturing in the US. Bad joke. It stops. But who knew the pituitary could run out of hormones? Not me!
I know... I listed the terms in opposite order to the way the rest of the post was presenting them. And there was method to my madness! It makes sense because... because... that's the way the drugs (ok...hormones) were given to me. Like a steenking sports metaphor, see? The blockers come first, and then the runner. I know the doctor tried to explain this. But he (or they) left out any reference to Marlon Brando, and certainly failed to mention my buddy Maura Lee Bankrupt... so it's no wonder I couldn't get it straight.
And now I've probably confused the heck out of someone else. If so, I apologize. I'm trying to work my way to understanding what the heck is going on inside me right now, and how that is helping me. And... critical to it all... what steps do I need to prepare for when we come out the other side of this? Because that's what will happen... I'll get to the other side of this and need to figure out what it means for my future direction.
Oh... one last thing. This hormone stuff is so circular that it drives me a bit nuts. The Trelstar injection I got a month or so ago contains the active ingredient "triptorelin", and if you look up triptorelin on the web (here... check out Wikipedia's definition) you find that the Wikipedia article says it's a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRH agonist). But the Trelstar site says it's a luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LH-RH agonist)... and that last link is the only one that attempts to say they're related terms. I swear... this is worse than software manuals... and I know something about those!
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