Best Of
Re: Cats, cats, cats
Misty's favorite napping place is DR'S clothes basket. She also likes to steal to his socks and scatter them around.
betrayal
Re: My Husband, My Life, My Love, My Family, My Cancer
@tanya_djamila , what wonderful pictures!
aj
Re: Faslodex Girls Thread
Shanagirl. Mets in that area sound painfull. I had scans 2 weeks before the pain hit and everything was negative. The pain is getting better just achy in the morning. All this is just very strange and sudden. I to am 73. I haven't had the flu since I worked in the hospital. Don't ever want it again. This is so the first time I felt bad after a flu shot. I felt like my immune system went into over drive. My allergies went crazy and I reacted to the fulvestrant shot and bandaid. At least I hope that is all that happened.
Re: Faslodex Girls Thread
Three-tree. Guillain-Barre Syndrome is pretty serious. The people I know that had it lost mobility and strength. Not much was said about pain in the back. One person was bed bound for at least a month and then with rehab he did eventually recover. As for the ache for me I don't think is cancer spreading. I had scans 2 weeks before. The nurse did say that inflamation from the medication would take about 2 weeks or longer and continue to improve. Lack of improvement would be a concern.
Re: My Husband, My Life, My Love, My Family, My Cancer
What photos, @tanya_djamila ! Just beautiful 🌸
Re: How long have you been Stage IV?
@norah2024 , I get CA15-3 and CEA. The Caris test checks for ESRI, PIK-3, and all those.
aj
Re: Faslodex Girls Thread
@shanagirl - Hello! I think you have a good point about the weather. It had been in my range of possibilities, but somehow this has seemed worse than with the bad weather, although maybe not? Maybe I just forgot since last year, how bad it can get. We have had a lot of rain and lower temperatures, and there's more rain coming in tonight. About your always having gotten another strain of flu after getting the shot, I didn't get shots for ever (I'll be 73 in December), because I hadn't had the flu since I was probably in my early 30's, I'd always read about how they were only like 25-30% effective, and then I'd hear about people's sore arms and other side effects, and I just figured I'd take my chances, and never really did get the flu on any kind of regular basis. I decided to get my first one a couple of years ago, because I had become stage 4, and figured it was probably wise at that point. That one made me a little sore for a couple of days, but nothing else. I didn't get one last year, and then I got this year's. It had seemed to only make me a little tired for a day or two, until I started reading about the Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and then so much of what I'd been experiencing, that I didn't associate with the flu shot, seemed to fit the bill. Now I'm not so sure again, as it looks like all the people who get that wind up in the hospital for close to a month! I'm back to thinking it could be the fulvestrant, the weather, or heaven forbid, progression in my spine. Good luck with your shots tomorrow - I get mine on Wednesday and am actually a bit scared after what happened the last time. Re your Xgeva, I also get Zometa (similar) and next month will make 2 years of treatments, so I will get my last infusion for awhile, and be able to take a break, and I am so glad! I don't know if it will be for 6 mos or a year, I'll have to see what he says, but that seemed to be the ball park he was talking about. (I also like turmeric and ginger.)
Re: Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?
Taco, you must mean the vaccines, not the diseases (the latter would have been brutal)! Our parents didn't have to pay for our educations: we went to CUNY which was tuition-free (we got NYS Regents scholarships of $450 to pay for books) and commuted from home; Bob's grad school paid HIM a teaching/research stipend and he borrowed only a token amount for med school; for the first two years of law school I took out modest student loans and used a small inheritance to pay for the third year. His folks did help us out when his salary as a 1st yr resident (and mine as a rookie IL Asst AG) wasn't enough to meet our rent & expenses—which in the late '70s in Chicago were 3x what they were in Seattle; the situation is now reversed, which is why I'm glad we weren't tempted to move back to Seattle after Chicago's Blizzard of '79.
Speaking of Rush/Pres/St. Luke's (now just "Rush," where the exteriors of "Chicago Med" are shot—as well as the first year of "ER"), that high rise was one of the places we considered renting when we moved here to start Bob's residency at UIC a short walk just down the street. (We ended up on the far N.Side because that's where we stayed in a cheap motel when we first landed, and our breakfast waitress pulled out a copy of The Reader and circled listings she thought we'd like and could afford; though since Bob didn't drive, either I drove him or he took a bus to the CTA "L" train). And Gordy was born at Rush. We've come full circle: Bob's current workplace, Union Health, is a block either way from UIC and Rush's Orthopedic clinic.
Bob's glasses were damaged (frames lost a screw, one lens badly scratched); but he discovered he reads and drives fine without them! My guess is that it's because the prescription dates back to 2022. We both have appointments at Warby Parler tomorrow; but since it takes 12-14 days for glasses to come in, I'm taking his tomorrow to a little optical shop in West Ridge, which can fix the frame and grind a new blank in 1-2 days (perhaps even the same day) to tide him over. I lent him my old pair of lighted drugstore readers in the meantime.
Still have mountains of stuff to retrieve from boxes and find where to put them. Might donate duplicates and offer some to Gordy for his new place. He suspects that his wife is pessimistic about his earning potential (as a teacher she makes half again what he does as an online fraud mitigator and unemployed actor) and thinks it's unfair for him to be eligible to inherit part of her dad's estate. Little does she know he stands to inherit 5x that much from us (Bob's dad, quite thrifty to put it mildly—half Swiss & half Scots—left us quite a bit, we have large retirement accounts and Bob's a savvy investor). And she has to share her inheritance with two sisters…whereas Gordy's an only child (of an only child of an only child). Her loss (though she'll probably never know).
chisandy
Re: oral minoxidil for hormonal therapy induced hair loss
I started taking oral minoxidil (same dose) in August and my hair has grown back significantly. I even went to a hair salon for the first time in years and they said I had 3-4 inches growth that was much thicker. I'd say 50% more but not quite how it was before all the treatment. It's also very curly, frizzy and dry (opposite to what I had before) but I'll take it!
I can now go out without a hat and everyone noticed the difference so completely worth it. I tried the topical treatments before and they didn't work as well as being horrible to apply. Hope this helps and you get a good result too!
I've been on letrozole for a couple of years and was on tamoxifen for a year before that.
oral minoxidil for hormonal therapy induced hair loss
Hello all,
My hair grew back very thick after chemo (took 2 hours to blowdry!) and stayed that way through ovary removal and 4 years of AIs. I thought I had lucked out. About 1.5 years into Tamoxifen I started losing it again - diffuse loss, over a few months, most noticeable at temples and crown. I had a scalp biopsy done to rule out any other causes, which it did - it showed "miniaturized" follicles which is consistent with hormonal hair thinning.
I've started oral minoxidil (1.25mg/day) and I wanted to know if others have tried this for their tamoxifen related alopecia. If so, how long until you noticed results and what were the side effects? I'm not bothering with the topical version (messy) and the oral version may also help my sad sparse brows and lashes so that was my choice.
Experiences?