Herceptin

danmiller3

Hi folks -

(First, before someone asks why I posting in the Breast Cancer forum as a male, I am one of the lucky males to have been diagnosed with breast cancer)

I am currently on the post-mastectomy Herceptin regimen. I have ten more rounds to go. Pre-suregery I was on Taxol, Herceptin and Perjeta. I started out on Taxatore but had to discontinue it after one round as it set off a small bomb in my digestive tract. :-)

My question for those on just Herceptin. I generally feel crumby. It's nothing specific. Just like I have a low-grade cold/flu-like symptoms on a continual basis. And an unusually large amount of saliva that is generated after I eat. Do others experience these type of symptoms? I'm guessing the generally crumbiness is normal and just a side effect of the Herceptin.

I'm also taking Tamoxofin but I suspect that's not the culprit...

Thanks for any input.

--Dan

exercise_guru

Welcome it is amazing that they were able to diagnose and catch BS in your case. I would love to hear your story.

I am a BS patient who has two tumors one requiring Herceptin and one requiring Arimidex. I have had a few infusions of Herceptin only since finishing Chemo. The first one did give me flu/cold symptoms so I requested that they run the infusion with saline and let it run over one hour instead of 30 minutes. It seems to have helped quite a bit. I still get a runny nose for 2-3 days but the side effects are much better.

What a bummer about Tamoxifen have they told you what to expect as far as side effects?

LauraSD

Hi Dan:

I have had 3 rounds of herceptin only and have been lucky to experience no side effects. I feel so much better since stopping taxotere and carboplatin. Your general malaise could be caused by either herceptin or tamoxifen. My oncologist told me most people tolerate herceptin really well and generally have no side effects. When did you start the tamoxifen? If you started them together, you could talk to your oncologist about briefly stopping the tamoxifen to see if you feel better without it. Also, are you having your heart function monitored? If your heart function is abnormal, that could make you feel run down as well.

I hope you can figure out what is causing you to feel lousy. It sure does seem like you take one drug to fight the cancer, then you have to take another to treat the side effects from the first drug. I got peripheral neuropathy from the chemo drugs and am now on Lyrica for that (it seems to be helping after only a few days). I'm on anastrozole, but need to take Prolia injections to prevent fractures. It seems to be never ending!

Good luck Dan!

Laura