Anyone on just Taxotere and Cytoxan?
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I have had racing heart beats, but only for a couple of days (days 5-7), but only upon exertion. On those days, any sort of exertion (like walking up a flight of steps), makes me feel like I just worked out for an hour. That plus extreme tiredness and mild muscle aches on day 4 have been my only SEs.
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OK. I found my thread! This site is so huge I don't know where to begin, but I have triple n egative, and I'm on these two drugs, so here we go!
I'm on day 6 after my first treatment and I have a rash that came on, today. It's across my shoulders and itches, so badly!
I have mouth sores, and had diarhea so badly yesterday and last night that pure water came thru if I drank it! I am cleaned out, so to speak! Squeaky clean! LOL
I'm worried, as everyone is, about losing my hair.
I'm sure I'll post more, but first I want to read this entire thread.
I can't post on this forum with my ipad, so this has to wait till I'm at my pc desktop to do that.
Thank you for letting me in here. I hope to be able to help someone and hope to be able to receive some help.
You ladies ROCK!
Jen
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Oh-- And I heard an interesting story about the FDA regarding the cold caps to wear, regarding keeping more of your hair by freezing the active cells, there.
More about that, later!
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Welcome Jenim If I have to give you one piece of advice it is this. Call your onc office for every side effect and check in with them to make sure it's not serious and to get advice on relief, don't suffer any more than need be. I thought about getting the penguin cold caps but I found out about it too late and it was $1,000 which I cannot afford. Plus the salesman was a real snake. He was pushing me like crazy trying to make me a payment plan when i finally told him I just can't do it he said "ya know there is a 15% chance your hair will never grow back." which is not true at all. So slimy to prey on me when I am so vulnerable. The only odds I found of hair not growing back were more like 3%. I am on day 7 tx 3 of 4 and I still have some of my hair, not much, not enough to go commando, but enough to stick out of a hat. One more to go.0
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Jenlm: I did 4 rounds of TC from April til June of this year. I used Penguin Cold Caps during all 4 rounds and kept a full head of hair. There is a thread here on bc.org called Cold Cap Users Past and Present. If you enter cold caps into the search field you should end up right there. I found them to be kind of labor intensive (my husband came along to help) but keeping my hair went a long way toward making me feel normal during a decidedly abnormal time in my life. Anyway, it was nice to find that hair loss could be a choice and not a foregone conclusion.0
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Carrol2: I just read your last post and I am floored. I'm so sorry that you had a bad experience with a rep at Penguin Cold Caps. Everyone that I dealt with was so caring and helpful. That has been the experience of all of the other women that I know who used the PCCs too. I hope that they haven't inadvertantly recruited an unethical jerk because it IS slimy to prey on us when we are vulnerable.
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has anyone experienced a rash on a thigh? 14 days post 2nd TC infusion, on my left thigh I developed a rash. It was itchy and then rash came out. Not sure what it looks like. Anyway, today is 4 days later and I still have the redness over that thigh and a little bit on the other thigh. I showed the oncologist today and she said she didn't know what it was and if it's still present on friday, I would have to cancel chemo.
Well, I don't want to cancel chemo because I want this over and done with. I can't describe what it looks like.. Definately not shingles and I don't see pimples or feel bumps. My husband says it looks like a contact rash, but if that were the case, why would it last 5 days and why wouldn't the doctor know it was contact dermatitis?
So, anyone experience this?
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HI Rachel,
Have you tried benedryl and claratin or some OTC hydrocordozone cream? I have a histsroy of contact dermatitis plus various allegies and these OTC meds often do the trick. Take the claratin in the day (it doesn't make you sleepy) and the benedryl at night. It just might do the trick. Good luck!
Jennim - I second Carols advice. Call your onc. In the meantime, don't suffer. Take 2 immodium for the diarhea right away. Try some claratin/benedryl and hydrocortizone cream for the rash. FOr mouth sores, try the swishing with salt and water plus the biotene mouth spray. Even though I was fanatical about swishing, I still get thrush each time, so sometimes we are just prone to get things.
I too read this whole thread when I was getting ready for my chemo journey (TC X 4) and it was invaluable. Good luck with yours and keep posting. Best, Beau
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Yes I have tried Benadryl and I'm using Aerius (antihistamine) daily. But thank you for the suggestion.
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rachel1966 this is super important. has the rash spread to your back or shoulders? i had a pimple like rash on my back and saw my oncologist who said ist either a) foliculitis or b) taxotere rash. we concluded its foliculitis since it did not show up on my legs and did not itch. i have an rx cream thats helping.
its really important you decipher between the 2. i have also found that changing my towel everyday helps (even though its annoying bc i have to do laundry more).
hope that helps.
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I asked the doctor if this was folliculitis and she didn't answer. She said she didn't know what it was. I don't have a rash on my shoulders or back or stomach or anywhere else. I did have folliculitis before on my stomach so I know how those little bumps feel. I don't feel any bumps on my thigh, it's just red almost like hives but they're not hives. It's not itchy at all anymore, just red. I have noticed that it's on both thighs and behind my knee on the left side. I don't know if this makes a difference or not, but I get my IV put in on my left side.
I'm suppose to go for blood work tomorrow and have my 3rd chemo on friday. Doctor said if it was the same or better to go ahead with chemo. If it was worse then to cancel. I don't think it's worse but I wonder if there's a danger to doing chemo?
I'm also wondering why she didn't have a dermatologist come look at it while I was there at the cancer clinic. Oh well... I hate to have to delay chemo, I want this over and done with.
Edited to add: I do wash with an antibacterial soap and I do put Fucidin (antifungal, antibacterial) cream on my thigh.
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rachel1966 did you end up getting the 3rd treatment? i hope you are well!
has anyone completed all 4 tretments yet? i have my last on Tue and am wondering if its significantly worse than 3?
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Shiramg,
Just had my fourth treatment this morning...I, however, still have 2 more to go...lucky me! I'm hoping that it doesn't get any worse...the last 3 have been about the same, except that some side effects are lasting longer, not necessarily getting worse, so that 's a good thing! So happy that you are almost done! That is awesome! I'll be there 6 weeks from today!
Good luck, and let us know how it goes!
peace and prayers,
Tori
DE COLORES!
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So I for certain start chemo Monday. I haven't picked up my premeds yet. Actually left a message for them to call me today and the other day, because I wanted to find out which meds I "had" to take, and which ones I could wait on... no one called back! I talked to the scheduler this morning about it, but no one has called back. I'm sure it's because of the holiday, but still. So I'm going to hydrate really well over the weekend and I guess Sunday night I'll be taking the "amp me up" decadron. My insurance is similar to Medicaid, and they only approved one treatment so far. Of course, they're not in today either. I don't know why they can't just approve it all... I have to have 4 rounds, so why in the world would they just do one at a time? No one has mentioned my blood work results... need to get a copy of that too. No one has mentioned the neulasta yet either. I so hope I don't have to get that! But yeah, what would the chance of that be? I'm anxious to get this started and get it done... I have to do it anyway, so there's no "good" time to start. Here's some irony... my half sister (never met) had breast cancer when she was 41, about 6 years ago. She had mx and guess when she started her chemo? The Monday after Thanksgiving! She just had a hysterectomy recently...
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Angelisa- make sure to take the decadron the day before treatment in the morning and after lunch (if your presription calls for two times). If you take it late in the day you will be up all night! I didn't want the Neulasta shot either and my insurance didn't approve it anyway for my first tx. Eleven days after my first tx I got a fever and got sick and ended up having to go to the cancer center every day for a week to get IV antibiotics through my port. My white counts totally bottomed out. This time my onc. demanded Neulasta and my insurance approved. It wasn't bad. I had a little achiness, took Aleve and did alright. My best wishes to you on Monday!! Take Care.
Tiffany
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cc4npg - I have done 3 of 4 TC txs and have yet to have the neulasta shot. My onco said that a lot of patients my age (40) get thru this without them. My WBC counts have been fine. In fact, they have been high. I got a nasty cold the day before my 1st tx and was on antibiotics for that (in case it was a sinus infection), which is what my onco thinks is causing it. They were down my 3rd treatment (at which time I had a rebound of the cold), but still high. I hope they are good for this 4th one. I really don't want the shot either. It sounds worse than the chemo to me.
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I am on day 11 of tx3. My next and last one will be dec 7th. I had the neulasta shot all 3x and no problems with it at all. I am nervous about tx4 becase the last one kicked my butt pretty good with fatigue but i am feeling much better today and even worked out with with my "firm" dvd cadio sculpt with a stepper and weights.
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shiramg ---- yes, I had my 3rd treatment today and so far so good... I expect the s/e to start on Sunday or Monday.. My sister will be giving me my Neulasta shot tomorrow.
My last treatment is on December 17th and I can't wait! I want this over.
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Rachel... how are you doing with the vision? You're one of the ones who had the blurriness right? I feel silly worrying over things that I have no idea whether I will have or not. I did the same thing before mx... about drove myself and everyone else crazy reading up on everything I could find online! It will be fine, just like the mx.
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Hi Shiramg and the rest of the gang:
I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving! I had my 4th and final TC on Monday and until today, I would say that it had been about the same as the others. Today, however, I got a temp of 100 degrees (it didn't go any higher, thank goodness!), but it really wiped me out. I slept the entire day, but for 2 hours when I got up to try to eat something. So, I do think the effects can be cumulative since I have never felt this weak before. Also, even though I take 1/2 the neulasta shot, the bone pain has been worse this time. All in all, it still seems doable (especially since I know this is the last time), but I am expecting that I will tired and breathless for longer this time than last.
Just FYI, the worst one for me was the first one because I had worse side effects from the steroids than the TC. They ended up cutting my steroid dose way back (from 12 pills over 3 days to 5 pills over 2 days) and I did much better after that. They gave me more benedryl and zantac as premeds, etc instead.
I wish you all a s/e free day! Best, Beau
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cc4npg --- my vison is still the same, still blurry but no worse as of yet. I do know that I needed bifocals before starting chemo, maybe chemo or the steroids is just making it a bit worse.
I had my 3rd TC yesterday and it went well. Today I'm already starting to feel some s/e.. Tired has hit, racing heart, stomach a bit upset but no nausea.
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Well, I've noticed this year my near vision has worsened too. Part of it is age related, being 43 now. I got a rx for reading glasses this year also, but haven't worn them yet. I think I'm going to have to start, because if I read for any length of time and then look up, I have to readjust my eyes. I've noticed a lot since the start of this diagnosis. I honestly believe the stress, anxiety, and number this plays on the mind has a lot to do with some of the fog we experience, as well as maybe the changes in other things like vision.
So happy for those finishing up their treatment!! Yay for you!! Christmas came early! Rachel, looks like you'll have your last one around Christmas... I'd take that as a present!
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I am on day 12 of tx 3 day 4-6 were really bad. Usually I am 100% by day 7 but still was feeling pretty tired until about day 8 this time. Even now not feeling quite right but way better. us tired not "fatigue".
i did not get any vision issues btw for those worried about that.
Just one more to go dec 7th.
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Carrol: Glad to hear you're almost done! I'm so anxious to get this party started. I keep adding up the treatments in my head, thinking with any luck at all, by such and such a date in March I should be feeling better again. It will be a nice Easter gift. By Easter, you may have a good amount of hair growth! For now, I have to run though... getting my wig today.
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cc4npg I used the week calculator to figure out the exact date it would all be done. I put in October 5th and added 12 weeks to figure the date i would be through my last cycle. I got Dec. 28th. But really you figure its mostly over the week before that. Day 14 -21 are good.
i did 4 tx 3 weeks aprt =12 weeks
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My last treatment is on December 17th - so I'll be feeling pretty bad for Christmas but at least I'll be done. Then I'll be on Tamoxifen for 5 years and considering an oophoretomy. I'm so happy to know one more treatment - I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's been quite the journey.
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Hi, I haven't posted on this thread in a while. I started TC on Dec. 7th, 2009 and finished on Feb. 8th, 2010. I officially stopped wearing my wig on May 7th...the day I had it coloured and trimmed. It was short but nobody looked at me strange. By week 2 of each round I was feeling pretty good and by week 3, I was pretty much back to normal. Be sure to have your finger and toe nails on ice during the Taxotere infusion. I credit that for saving my nails. I never lost any nor did they discolour in any way. Good luck to you all.
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I had 3 treatments and did not do the ice thing and my nails are fine. I polished them with clear polish with calcium in it. that is about it. I have one treatment left.
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My doctor wanted me to be on taxotere and cytoxan, but the taxotere put me into anaphylactic shock. He said I had less than a 2 percent chance of that happening but from reading this board, it seemed a lot of women have had a bad reaction to taxotere. It looks like I'll be doing abraxane/cytoxan as Plan B. I'm just praying that I don't react to abraxane like I did taxotere or I'm done with chemo.
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Lalalara -- I was terrified of an allergic rx to TC. I'm 19 days post Tx#1 - I'm alllergic to a lot of things. Latex being one and the Yew tree that Taxotere is from is in the same family. I didn't have a reaction (yet) they say that if you get through #2 you are unlikely to have one. Anyway -- tried to research and found --- Abraxane is taxotere mixed with a different solution. They think people are not allergic to the taxotere but the solution it is dissolved in so you probably will have good luck with Abrax/C. I hope so anyway...Best, Lisa
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