Lumpectomy Lounge....let's talk!

Sloan15

Anyone else REALLY cutting back on sugar/sweets and white flour? I already ate healthy as I'm a health educator, but I didn't count all the sneaky ways fructose gets in the body (like 15g with my gummy vitamins). So, my doc says I have to really be careful now. He said it's not just sugar but anything that increases fat. It's all fat in the body that makes estradiol (which increases recurrance for me or new bc risk). I hated chemo and bc taking 6 months of my life so much that I can make some simple changes. If I want that brownie, I'm having it. BUT, I'm not getting simple carbs from vitamins, a crappy piece of bread, nor mindless snacking anymore. I think I can drop my chemo/steroid 10 lbs in just a couple months with simple changes. Read the article out now on sugar. It's nothing new, but now they put a number on it (less than 6t sugar/day for better health).

LovesToFly

I am gluten intolerant, vegan, and already limit sugar and junk food carefully (lost 50lbs in 2010). I have no idea what I'm going to eat during chemo if I start having food aversions to what I normally eat!

Peachy2

Everyone has her own thing! For hair loss I am at the other end of the spectrum. I have always had long hair, so reading the suggestion in the American Cancer Society's materials of going with a short cut pre-chemo was more horrifying to me than the thought of losing my hair! The MO said that it would fall out sometime around day 16 - 18. I had a yoga workshop with a visiting instructor to attend on Day 18, and went with my hair in a braid and a headband, praying that I wouldn't leave clumps of hair on the yoga mat. I came home after, took off the hair band, and saw a thin spot in front. Ran my fingers through my hair and lots came out. The wig went on for work the next day, and for me it was better to just let the hair loss take its own course. Also I figured that long hairs would be easier to pick up than short hairs when they fell out.

HappyHammer

LTFly- will do...I'm halfway thru 30 sessions of rads with no pain, not much redness, some sort of irritating itchiness- but the nipple just does not want to have anything rubbing it- thinking the spanx type camis may help keep everything in place with no chafing/rubbing.

Any of you gals try these during rads???

PontiacPeggy

When I read of the wide variety of approaches to hair loss due to chemo, it points out that there is no one size fits all approach to anything to do with BC. We are all unique!

HUGS!

HappyHammer

True PPeggy- one reason I love "talking" with you gals is that while the ride is unique to each of us....the shared experience and differences in how our ride twists and turns can help a sister out. So thankful for you all and this site!

HappyHammer

LTFly- one thing that worked for me the whole time thru chemo was the vegan forms of Shakeology...a true Godsend...a friend had gotten me started on the shakes using almond milk about 3 months prior to diagnosis...I do not like meat and so protein intake is always an issue. The Shakeo shakes are tasty but not too smelly and do not seem to have an aftertaste...and, they were something I could drink even when other things would not work. Just a thought.

PontiacPeggy

HappyHammer, exactly right. This site is wonderful. Serious or not, it's a great place to find answers to our questions (do YOU hook your bra in front or back? Or even wear one at all?). And help in coping with stuff we never wanted to cope with anyway. Thank you BC Sisters!

HUGS!

Peachy2

Sloan, I am also re-thinking my food choices, and wish I had your background to better sort it all out. Reading about phytoestrogens was enough to freak me out and stop putting ground flax seed on my morning cereal as I have for 15 years. And the jury is still out on soy. My MO said "you can have a glass of wine for celebrations, or a piece of cheesecake once in a while." Cheesecake? She clearly doesn't share my love of chocolate.

Knowing that drinking alcohol increases risk of breast cancer by 15%, continuing to have a couple of drinks on weekends means I'm cancelling out the benefit I got from chemo in reducing probability of recurrence.

LovesToFly

thanks happy. I'll look into that.

Italychick

LovesToFly I had hair almost to my butt and I didn't cut it until day 24. It got thinner, but not noticeable until my part became 2". That was a little hard to camouflage. No matter what you do, I think almost everybody has two weeks from first chemo before things get crazy on the hair front. Keeping mine as long as I could made the window of being bald shorter for me. And I hated the wig, and I got good ones.

There are no easy answers on the hair issue

marijen

Peachy 15% of what? Fifteen percent of all women or fifteen percent of the one in eight women that get BC? (12%). 15% of 12% is a lot less than 15% of 100. Follow? 15% + 12% would be 27%. Don't think that is true....

PontiacPeggy

ItalyChick, you are so right. No easy answers on hair. I'm sure the gals appreciate learning of all the different approaches and the reasoning behind them. It must help clarify their own thinking.

HUGS!

Sloan15

I'm just happy to have again. Losing my hair was not a big deal for me because that was the price of killing cancer cells. That's how I got through it. But, once chemo was over, bald got old fast. I wore my wig for a while, but I'm fine now with 1/2 -1 inch. Since it's cold out, I wear a little slouch cap. It's great how we are all thankful for small victories.

Peachy2

Marijen, this is what I read in the Drinking Alcohol section of the Breast Cancer Risk portion of BreastCancer.org:

"Compared to women who don't drink at all, women who have three alcoholic drinks per week have a 15% higher risk of breast cancer. Experts estimate that the risk of breast cancer goes up another 10% for each additional drink women regularly have each day. While only a few studies have been done on drinking alcohol and the risk of recurrence, a 2009 study found that drinking even a few alcoholic beverages per week (three to four drinks) increased the risk of breast cancer coming back in women who'd been diagnosed with early-stage disease."

Full topic here:

http://www.breastcancer.org/risk/factors/alcohol

Sloan15

I, too, like that we all give different perspectives. It helps us sort out what we really want.

Molly50

Flaxseed is a problem? I don't drink, don't smoke so just need to get out of holiday mode and back to healthy eating. Especially now that my food aversion is getting better.

Peachy2

Molly50, the first information I read on flax suggested it was not advisable, but this contradicts it and I'm going with it! (I am so with you on the needing to get out of holiday mode!)

"According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, current research suggests that flaxseed may be protective, especially in post-menopausal women, and consuming flaxseed does not increase risk for breast cancer. Previously, it was thought that the lignans, which are phytoestrogens, would act like estrogen in the body. However, current research indicates that is not the case."

The rest of the info is here:

http://www.dana-farber.org/Health-Library/Phytoest...

Sloan15

Anyone ever do nerdy things (like me) and Google grammar rules? So, I looked up "Do you eat healthy or healthily". I knew it was an adverb thing and should be healthily, but I typed healthy in a post. Turns out you can us them both as it's just a matter of time that popular language wins out: Eat Healthy is Googled 2.4 million times vs 1 million for Eat Healthily. Furthermore, several dictionaries find either form now to be acceptable.

The next question for me to look up is if "Googled" is actually a verb. Haha

Okay, I'm on my stationary bike with only a cellphone to entertain myself....

Sloan15

I'm with you Molly! I started eating more protein today. A lot of women in the Tamoxifen thread said that protein helped them not gain weight on Tam. I'm on 40mg of Tam, so I increased protein and really want hungry all day. I mostly eat vegetarian foods, but I eat fish and chicken occasionally. I'm trying to have protein in the AM now.

octogirl

Peachy, granted it is late and I am tired, but I think as Marijen was pointing out, that your arithmetic is off on the percentage increase from drinking vs. chemo; I think you are not comparing the same type/rate of percentage. The article you quote says that risk goes up 15% *compared* to women who don't drink; in other words, that means women who drink are at 15% *higher* risk than those who don't drink. That doesn't mean there is a15% overall increase in risk from drinking, just that those women who drink, on average, are at 15% greater risk than the non-drinking population of women. So, the increased risk from drinking is 15% of whatever the percentage risk is of contracting bc for the overall non-drinking population. (which is low, although I don't know what it is offhand).

OTOH, the figures I was given about chemo were about my *overall* reduction of risk: I was told that my personal risk of a reoccurrence went from about 22% (a bit less than 1 in 5, which I didn't think were great odds) to about 10%, (1 in ten, still not as great as I'd like, but better) or an *overall* 12% reduction in my personal level of risk. Of course, the potential benefit of chemo varies greatly among individuals, hence importance of the oncotype and other genomic tests to help measure the likelihood that the cancer will reoccur.

Don't get me wrong, I think that cutting way back on drinking is a good idea, but I don't think that the study you are quoting supports the conclusion that a few drinks on the weekend in essence cancels out the benefits of chemo.

Hugs;

Octogirl

molliefish

There are a couple of interesting studies out there regarding the risk of recurrence of BC with alcohol consumption. I was intrigued. My MO has never said a word about whether I should or should not drink alcohol.

marijen

Thanks for getting what I was getting at octogirl! And to further the discussion, with 250,000 in the US getting BC every year I highly doubt they all did it to themselves. Maybe we'll find out before we die.

From Medicine.net.

PontiacPeggy

My MO never said a word about alcohol. And I didn't ask. I generally have 1 glass of wine with dinner (never more) most nights. I'm not likely to stop, either. But that works for me. There seems to be so much contradictory information (facts???) out there that the most I feel I can do is what seems right to me. It may not be right for you.

HUGS!

ChiSandy

My BS and MO both said that 2 or 3 5-oz. glasses of wine per week would be fine. I generally pour 2-3 oz. now and usually don’t finish it. Moreover, it is BODY fat, not DIETARY fat, that produces estradiol. And that is of concern only to women with ER+ tumors who have functioning ovaries and are not taking an AI (tamox. blocks estrogen receptors but not estrogen production). Alcohol can lessen the liver’s ability to clear estrogen from the bloodstream, and when aromatase is inhibited by AIs, the fat cells and adrenals no longer make estrogen/estradiol.

However, refined carbs are no damn good for anybody. I’ve gone back now to low-carb because I’ve started AI therapy (and am on day 4 of prednisone for acute asthmatic bronchitis) and want to keep weight gain to a minimum, and hopefully prevent it or lose a little. I’ve also cut way back on red and processed meat.

Melclarity

Sloan I'm with you, I can't wait my hair is still stubble awww I know only 3 weeks post chemo but my wigs I'm over now and it's summer here Uuuugh lol.

Loves to fly - Everyone is different, my hair started falling out 1 week into chemo, I buzzed it immediately, and I made the choice from the beginning to do that. Was too upsetting my hair coming out in handfuls. I absolutely dealt with that more quickly that way.

Vicks1960

Love to fly.

When my daughter was having chemo for ovarian cancer, once her hair started to leave, she had her beautician buzz the rest off. I don't know if it is this way all over but (in Nebraska) the American cancer society gave her a wig. She had a friend who is a beautician in another state, who sent her several wigs that were sanitized, different colors and styles, she had a ball wearing them. Amazing how different they made her look. Unfortunately the two different chemo series weren't enough and she died Oct. 31, 2014. My son-in-law still has some of the wigs in the closet. Before she died she sent a couple to a lady she had met only on line who was having chemo and little $$$.

I am a 4 year survivor of IDC. one more year to go on Letrzole!!!.

Good luck on your journey

614

Dear ChiSandy:

The rupture of your SLNB incision must have been awful.  Was it very painful?  The seroma sounds like it was terrible.

Thanks for explaining the whole band/cup size.  I never knew that.  Interesting.

Molly50

Thank you, Peachy

614

Apparently, I did not realize it, but I missed about 3 pages of posts.  Sorry that I did not respond to what all of you posted.  This is a very active thread.  I am going to bed.  I will read/respond tomorrow when I will be about 7 pages behind!