Anyone else in the same situation?

Oh MIchelle, I wish I had advice or my own experience to pass on to you but I can only offer you big {{{HUGS}}}.

I think that is the best plan. The reason I thought of it was that a friend of mine had some big health concerns (but not diabetes, so I don't have any specific insight about that part of it). When she was diagnosed with BC, she got and endo involved right from the start. He brought another perspective to the team, and she felt a lot better about the treatment decisions which were made with his input.

You can. I did......veggies tasted creepy, fruit tasted pretty good, mashed potatoes with butter and cheese tasted best. Your taste buds can get very strange, but there is nothing that you can't or have to eat.

Don't read too much of the scary food stuff, or the 'only eat bland food' stuff either (I ate jalapeno peppers like a mad woman).....I sure wouldn't worry too much about peeling/scrubbing etc. I think the risk of infection is not all that great (especially from a melon!).  I taught school all during chemo; ate what I felt like eating, washed my hands like crazy and stayed healthy throughout. I would be more concerned about the different chemos interactions (such as you mentioned with the taxols), but not that worried about the food aspect of it.

Yes Michelle..I did chemo...4 AC and 4 Taxol Dose Dense.

And I didn't worry too much about infections or any of that during chemo..I worked, went to a million (it seemed) graduation partys, track meets, casinos, swimming, hot tubs  and ate what tasted good...I wouldn't get too freaked out about that stuff but do what puts your mind at ease.

just to add my two cents...if you are given Neulasta or Neupogen (short acting form of Neulasta) your white blood cell count shouldn't drop you into the neutropenic range.  I would follow standard precautions, such as not being around people who are sick, excellent hand washing, cooking your food throughly.  Your counts will drop and come back in a "pattern" which is actually how they space out your chemo.

Of course, all guidance should ultimately come from your Onc and Nurses, but hoping to alleviate some fears.

The steroids are not in large doses, and are for 3-5 days.  Yes, you will need to be mindful of your Blood sugars, and I think the Endocrinologist is a wonderful part of your team if needed.

The neuropathy can resolve, and mine has started to get better a few months out of chemo.  The L glutamine is one way to go, I was started on Neurontin before chemo, and I am still taking it at night.  Made a huge difference!

so I have not added too much that hasn't already been said, but I do think you should be able to manage your diabetes during chemo and stay protected from infection through the monitoring by your Onc, and Neulasta (this was protocol at my site.)

Best wishes!!  Keep up the good research, questions and tailor it to your treatment.  You will do right by yourself

I am triple negative with a ki67 of 90%, dx in March 09.  I had a lumpectomy and re excision for some high grade DCIS in the margin.  Grade 3, stage 1, no nodes or lymphvascular invasion.  I had absolutely no estrogen positivity. 

Because I had secondary health problems I could not do chemo.  Other health issues delayed my rads, so I did not do rads either.  I am only 17 months out from my second surgery, but so far I am having good exams and tests. 

I didn't do nothing.  I made life style changes and went on a supplement protocol, along with some other interventions.  I have slacked off in the past few months but for the most part am still trying to stay with good habits.  Except for the coffee thing and my love of the occasional pizza, I am trying to eat as cleanly as possible!

Hi LuvRVing,

Just thought my story might help:  I had 2 bc's; 3cm+ TN, Ki67=97% in left breast, <1cm ER+ in right breast. Before bmx, I had 8 rounds of dose dense AC/T.  Onc wanted me to go on AI, but because of prior experience with Lupron when I was in my 30s to treat endometriosis, I knew how quickly those drugs could make me feel like an 80 year old woman; so I refused.  I promised to lose considerable excess weight and start exercising. (I was 55, 5"2 and about 165lb.).

Well, at the beginning of the year I started diet. Then began seeing a Naturopathic doc who, after series of blood tests, declared that I was indeed diabetic and low thyroid.  He put me on natural thyroid hormones, iodine, Vit D (of course!), followed by a 30 day cleansing juice fast. I felt terrific within 3 days! More energy than I'd had in years.  I continued on a very high-vegatable, reduced meat diet and lost total of about 25 lbs so far. I'm fairly certain that whatever blood sugar problem I had was controlled by diet changes.

I was intriqued by this thread because I did get neuropathy from the T chemo.  I have it to this day, almost 2 years later.  It's not terrible, and I don't think it's constant (at least I don't constantly pay attention to it). But, these posts have born out for me that I was indeed diabetic, or at least pre-diabetic BEFORE my chemo, and went through chemo without knowing.  I ate everything I felt like, and did not lose taste or appetitite at all with chemo.  (I should add at this point, that Naturopath/alternative doctor's numbers, or thresholds, for diagnosis of dis-ease/illness are often much lower than regular doctor's readings of our bloodwork, which is why I was able to sail under the radar for diabetes and thyroid).

Anyway, perhaps my case does bear out that there is a link between diabetes and neuropathy when given taxols for chemo; and I thank you women for pointing that out to me. BUT, because my heart was strong enough to bear the adriamycin, I would not have changed my chemo treatment at all; we threw the strongest regimine for TN chemo at the time, at it.  I think my lingering neuropathy is a small price to pay for the knowledge that I have done, and now through diet changes, weight loss, etc. am doing, all I can to prevent recurrance.

BC is a nasty, scary, and tricky disease.  TN makes it even scarier/trickier.  I admire your questions and your fore-thought to put an endocrinologist on your team.  But I hope that after your elected chemo is done (and I DO expect that you will opt for some type of chemo) that you may add an alternative health doctor to your team.  I wish I had done that before all my treatment started, but I was too freaked out with my diagnosis to even think about it. Besides, I am happy to have thrown all the conventional medicine I needed at it.  I'm just taking the time now to make the changes in my diet and overall health that made me vulnerable in the first place. 

Best of luck to you on this terrible journey!  Please let us know what you decide and how it's going!

Sue