Vitamins/Supplements that work well with iBrance and Faslodex !

Adele_Julia

Hello Ladies,I'm new here. ER/PR+, Her2 Negative. Was initially stage II breast cancer. Had a lumpectomy and full lymph node extraction on my ride breast and armpit followed by 4 months chemo and 2 months radiation. This was last year. A year later it is back in the same place IDC (ductal carcinoma). Holy cow and it spread. Now I'm stage IV and they are putting me on Ibrance and Faslodex. Anyone else on this? I was reading Jane's book and my oncologist freaked saying Berbermine and Curcumin lessen the effects. They are good if you aren't on "chemo" which apparently iBrance is. Truly looking for help on what supplements (vitamins and herbs) work well with iBrance and Faslodex. Any input is welcomed ! Thank you in advance !

Very worried and frightened !!

Moderators

Welcome, Adele_Julia! W're sorry to see you haven't had any replies yet. We're bumping this topic for Adele_Julia's question on Vitamins/Supplements that work well with iBrance and Faslodex. Can anyone offer advice/experience?

Thanks in advance!

The Mods

moth

Adele_Julia, I think I recognize you from the zoom. Where are your mets again?

Adele_Julia

I have MBC in my right breast and a few lymph nodes under my breast plate and pleural fusion. Hope that helps !

moth

Interesting! I think we have a few people who have metastatic pleural effusion, I think they're on the lung mets thread. Did your team test the effusion for cancer cells? The lymph nodes are complicated - there is controversy about whether even distant + lymph nodes should be treated as stage 3C instead of 4. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/a...

Hope you're doing well on ibrance & faslodex!

exbrnxgrl

Adele_Julia,

You cannot have mbc in your breast. Metastatic disease means you breast cancer has metastastasized to a distant organ, most often brains, nones, liver or lungs in the case of bc. Some lymph nodes may be distant but lymph nodes in the breast /chest area are also not always considered mets though they may be depending on location. Take car

Adele_Julia

Agreed. My apologies. My IDC came back in the same place as the lumpectomy with several tumors on my right breast and affected nodes and the pleural lining. I am MBC just fortunate that my mets are not in my lungs, brain, bones etc. Thanks for catching my error !

Spookiesmom

I’ve been on ibrance about a year, with letrozole. I only take D3 and B12. Ask your MO if you can or should take any supplements. There is an ibrance thread, you can do a search, I can’t do links

ShetlandPony

Oddly enough, it is my onc's opinion that the breast tumor that showed up at the same time as my liver mets, was metastatic disease in the breast. It was in a different quadrant than the original tumor, and looked/felt like metastatic disease to her.

I am one who believes food is better than supplements, although I do take or have taken supplements to correct deficiencies (vitamin D3, B12) or for bone health (omega 3 fish oil, magnesium, D3, K2). I ran it all by my oncologist. I consulted a cancer nutritionist when I was on Ibrance, and she warned me to avoid not only grapefruit, but pomegranate, noni fruit, star fruit, Sevilla orange, and blood orange. She said they use the same liver enzyme for metabolism and could interfere with Ibrance. So it is always good to do some research.

exbrnxgrl

Shetland,

Wow, that’s a new one for me! Did your doc explain how bc in the breast can be considered metastatic since the definition of metastatic indicates the disease has moved to distant organs? Live and learn

Adele_Julia

Hi there, I'm not sure how to respond. I'm looking at my Diagnosis and PetScan. I don't have Mets to the bones but certainly do to the lymph nodes and pleural. Thanks

moth

Adele_Julia, one thing about this board is that we are super detail oriented so I hope you don't take it personally but literally the littlest things matter. Is there malignancy in the actual pleural tissue or did you have a metastatic pleural effusion? ie was it the liquid that had cancer cells in it or did they find mets in the actual tissue of the pleura?

re the metastatic - I think this becomes an issue when we talk with oncologists because their terminology for some things is actually not the same as what's used in common conversation - even with the same oncologists! (& it's the same mess as when we talk about staging. Remember how unless you're de novo you're not *technically* stage 4, you stay whatever the original stage was + the metastatic site?)

So oncologists & pathologists will say metastatic anytime there's spread from the original tumor site. So even positive axillary nodes are technically listed as metastases. So if you have contralateral recurrence, & the MO is sure the cancer is not a new primary but definitely a recurrence of the other breast's cancer, then that's technically a metastasis but for patients, for the boards, for common discussion, and for treatment, it's not. It's just a loco regional recurrence in the other breast.... (unless there are metastases in another organ)

(btw I've seen some cheaters/scammers online claim to have metastatic breast cancer that they were miraculously cured from but when you dig deep, they had a couple positive sentinel nodes. But because the path reports will use the term metastases, they say they had metastatic cancer... Grrrr. )

ShetlandPony

My apologies to OP Adele_Julia, for going off topic, but I do want to answer exbrnxgrl's question to me. I did not ask my onc for more explanation because I understood it to mean that this new breast tumor got there the same way the tumors in my liver got there, by cells traveling through the blood or lymph and setting up shop in a new spot. This would be different from tumor cells of a breast tumor spreading through the breast as they replicate. If this explanation is nonsensical, moth will tell me!

I found an article that says "The most frequent source of a metastatic breast lesion is the contralateral breast" and then it lists extra-mammary cancers that can metastasize to the breast (lymphoma/leukemia, melanoma, etc.) It goes on to describe how a breast met looks different from a primary breast tumor on mammography and ultrasound. Another article lists "intramammary" as a rare site of bc metastasis. Who would have thought?

https://radiopaedia.org/articles/metastases-to-the-breast-1

https://radiopaedia.org/articles/breast-cancer-metastases

ShetlandPony

Adele, here links to the Ibrance and Faslodex threads. I hope to hear you report that your treatment has worked splendidly! And I hope you will find lots of good info and support here.

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topics/828848?page=831#top

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topics/816419?page=114#top