Ibrance (Palbociclib)

sunshinedaydream

@cowgal - sorry for the delayed response! I haven’t heard anything about anyone being taken off Ibrance after so long while being NEAD. I believe Ibrance was FDA approved in 2015, so, I am not sure how many people have been on it that long without needing to change treatment. This thread is so quiet, I often feel like I’m one of the last people on this. Are you still taking it? I started my 65th cycle earlier this month.

@chicagoan - did you figure out what was going on with your hip and are you still on Ibrance?

My fatty liver turned out to be just that. No cirrhosis, so that was good news. The doctor told me to lose 5% of my body weight, which I did but gained back. It hasn’t been mentioned on any scans since though.

Hope everyone is feeling well.

chicagoan

@sunshinedaydream Hello! This thread is really quiet now. I am still on Ibrance-my 126th cycle-but in late 2025, I was switched from Letrozole to Orserdu. I did have progression in 2025. My hip problem was a combination of arthritis and cancer. I had my hip replaced a year ago and now I feel fine. My cancer was not showing up on CT or Bone scans. Now I have PET scans and the most recent showed that my treatment combo is working to shrink my active tumors.

Interesting about your liver. My weight has been up about 20 pounds since I started treatment so I can understand the difficulty in keeping it off. I sometimes lose 5 lbs but then I gain it back. Good to know you don't have cirrhosis.

I feel well and hope that you do too.

joanieford

I am just starting Imbrance. If you could comment how you deal with side effects that would be great.

moderators

Hi @joanieford, and welcome to the community! Until you get some responses from other members, you may find our https://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/targeted-therapy/ibrance article helpful as you get started. We hope others in the group here will share their side effect experiences and how they coped with them.

Best,

The Mods

aimeeeee

@joanieford welcome to the club! Don’t resign yourself to side efffects. I have none; in fact I’ve never felt better or stronger. I’ve been on Ibrance (along with Itovebi, and monthly injections- Faslodex, Lupron, Xgeva), so I have been in med induced menopause for two years this November. I’m 41. Manage what is actually within your control - healthful diet, consistent movement, metabolic health, glucose stability, sleep and stress. Have faith in science, r&d and the meds. They work, and the scientists are doing amazing work creating new therapies, so we need to keep our bodies as strong as possible to handle whatever may come. Enjoy every day of your life. Wishing you all the best. Keep us posted.

brutersmom

@joanieford. I have had very few side effects from Ibrance. My biggest issue in the beginning was fatigue and low neutrophils. Fatigue was managed with a lower dose. My oncologist recently switched me to alternative dosing 5 days on 2 off to manage the neutrophils issue. If you get mouth sores stop using toothpaste with Sodium lauryl sulfate that will help. In the beginning i had a lot of heartburn and nausea. Turned out that was from the letrozole not ibrance. Discover that when i had knee replacement surgery and was off ibrance for 2 months. The heartburn and nausea continued. I had a sever neuropsychological response to letrozole so now I am on Fulvestrant shots and rarely have stomach issues. One thing i can't do is over eat or very spicy foods. For me it has been a fairly easy drug to tolerate.

joanieford

Thank you for responding and welcoming me to the club. I don’t know my way around this community yet. I started the Fulvesterant Shots yesterday, without incident. I have Trigeminal Neuralgia, and I think I am bothered by that mostly. My Ibrance and ITOVEBI came today, I will start those tomorrow. Then we will see how it goes. I feel supported here. Thank you for that, Aimeeee and Bruersmom.

aimeeeee

@joanieford - with itovebi, it’s best if you eat a low carb diet. The doctors won’t tell you this because they don’t want to disrupt your life too much, but Itovebi can interfere with insulin signaling and raise blood sugar, so keeping carbs low helps keep glucose more stable and insulin demand lower, and makes the drug more effective. If you need help figuring this out, message me, and I’ll be happy to walk you through it. Also if you experience range of motion issues in your hips with the fulvestrant shots, red light & near infrared light therapy will help tremendously. I have been the guinea pig, so you don’t have to! Just message me!