Symptoms of mets

1210donna

You really have had your share of health problems. I do hope someone is looking after you? medically speaking and you are able to get to the bottom of what is causing these horrid symptoms.

Do check in and let us know. It's so awful having to repeatedly get tests for stuff, but it does sound like you need a comprehensive work-up to explore the cause of these symtoms.   

Hi Ladies,

Looking for some advice or insight. Since I finished treatment in January I have been suffering from joint and hip pain. My doctor prescribed mild pain meds that help to take the "edge" off enough for me to sleep.  I had a hysterectomy and oopherectomy 3 weeks ago and with the pain meds given after surgery it was the first time that it actually helped relieve the leg and hip pain.  It has now gotten to the point where I can no longer sleep on my right side due to the pain in that hip.  I also noticed that this past weekend when I was walking up an incline I was so short of breath that it caused pain in my right shoulder and upper arm as well as my right ribcage. My Onc called and wants to see me (I think because my GP called her) since I wasn't scheduled to see her until December of this year.

I can understand SE's but I am almost 6 months out from chemo and never had rads or any other treatment beyond surgery and chemo. I've always had a high tolerance for pain and recover quickly from things but I just can't get past this.

Thanks shoppygirl,

It could very well  be, I must say that I have been walking a bit carefully after last surgery. I know I need to get my mind off this damn cancer but it is certainly difficult.

thanks for the quick reply,

J

finished chemo Dec 2011.  Mar was diagnosed with Central Apnea - brain scan fine - phew.  Inflammatory tenosynovitis made my hands claw up and feet immensely painful to walk... ok its reacting to something, we don't know what... next June 2012 the polyuria has gone nuts... 3-4 litres a day became 4-5L, 5-6L, 6-7L, 7-8L with me getting progressively more nausea, sleep attacks, flushing and dehydrating by 500ml-1.5L a day... what was this?  Endocrinologist wrote Diabetes Insipidus.  Whilst awaiting the fluid restriction test to find out how much desmopressin they could give me to turn off the water works I laugh my head off with pals and start choking, coughing something moving low in my lungs like I'll cough up a lung... think nothing of it... happens two more times in a week, I was up with a coughing fit... but I feel fine... denial is wonderful of course... I'm dizzy and its like free drugs, but the dizziness is on, then off, then on, then off... and I think, oh shit, what does 7-8L of urine output do to diluting my Tomoxifen... and I research Diabetes Insipidus... ok, so it can be mets to pituitary-hypothalmus... what does hypothalmus do... thirst, hunger... oh... so now I understand why I was on 8000mg sodium with no thirst whatsover... they didn't find the sodium in my urine or blood levels... I was in trouble... damn... but I feel well, I insist I do... and if I insist then nothing can get me, no bogie man, no cancer... and I look up laughing + choking cough and see it can also be lung mets... but I still say, no, I'll be lucky, it will be sarcoidosis or something manageable... sure, I have primary immune deficiencies, but why shouldn't I be one of the 70% who have early breast cancer, have double mastectomy, chemo, Tomoxifen and life happily ever after... with a body thank you... sure, the elephant in the room understands and is winking at me.  I see the oncologist tomorrow. 

I haven't been on the boards for a very long time. This weekend I was having some pain with deep breaths. Went to ED to make sure it wasn't a blood clot. Was told I have pneumonia with no cough and there is an effusion and then they gave me a copy of the disc of the CT Scan and told me to call my oncologist. Anyone else with lung mets that started this way? I won't know it's mets for sure until Wed (day after tomorrow) but ED doc sure did sound uneasy.

GrandmaBubba,

Just want to tell you that sometimes pneumonia with effusion is just that. i got pneumonia shortly after being dx with mets to my spine and I thought, oh no, here we go with more mets. But it wasn't!!! I had a CT of the chest after my antibiotics were done and my chest was clear, no mets. I hope for you too that this will be the case. This was about a year ago and I haven't had any lung problems since.

I finished chemo in June and completed radiation in September. I wanted to not worry about cancer anymore and just get on with my life but within the last month noticed that my shoulder keeps feeling like it's sliding out of joint and then back into place. It hurts and I didn't do anything to cause it. I noticed this weekend that when I touch the bone on my shoulder it hurts in one spot like its bruised. I have taken Ibuprofen but it doesn't go away. I'm going to my MO on Wednesday for them to check it out. I'm praying at this point for a torn rotator cuff! Who prays for that? Someone who's had cancer and been through chemo and radiation that's who. I wish I could remember doing something to cause it but can't and it's really worrying me. I don't want to tell my husband, parents or friends about it because I don't want them to worry. I spent last Christmas waiting to hear the results of my biopsy, I really just want to have worry free holidays this year.

CAT scan today due to liver swelling and pain. Thoroughly freaked out from what I read. Even if I get an all clear from today, based on what I'm reading, I REALLY can't trust it!

this is really a good place! thanks!

I have my right shoulder(surgery side) pain since sept. last year while I still having chemo. some days better than other days, but never goes away, checked with bone scan, Ct scan, lungs x-ray, all fine, my family doctor said could be cause by surgery. its so annoying the pain, but I can do nothing except trusting the doctor. this crap cancer!

thanks for listening!

Leggo

Thank you for starting this thread!  I have multiple issues from headache, neck all the way to knee issues that do not go away and am in process of getting things checked out.  It helps tremendously to see symptoms others are going through or not.

Good luck to all of you ladies in the process of getting tested also.  Just remember that mets can be manageable and there are many new promising drugs out there, if the shoe drops for us.

Thanks for this thread. I have developed a dry cough for the last two weeks and a rash on my chest, that is not acne. The rash showed up post my exchange surgery.

Of course I am thinking it is mets. I am seeing the dermatologist on Friday, but am putting off a call to my MO . We have a family vacation planned end of July to Barbados as a celebration of the end of this desease. I am torn between checking in with him now or waiting till I get back. Thoughts?

Thanks

Thanks for your response. I saw a Pulmonologist a few months back for shortness of breath and I am am on Nasonex and Zyrtec daily. I also used my inhaler. I have not used it in years and there was no relief. 

I do see the Pulmonologist 2nd week in August, maybe I will wait until then. 

Thanks again!!!

Thanks voracious. In addition to the cough, I Woke up with a sore throat, so maybe I'll just call my  PCP and see what he says. Mets of course are always in the back of my mind. I hope the fear fades the further I get away from BC.  

I'll keep you posted.

schoolcouns: Just wondered if you might be in Barbados right now!  (showing off those new "girls" you just got). I went to Barbados probably about 30 years ago. It was so gorgeous, and not at all "touristy" like many of the Caribbean islands (because cruise ships were not there and it's an expensive flight, being so far south).  It took a full day to get there (back then) and three planes.  I do remember it being SO humid (can't recall at what time of year we went). But very "English" in feeling. They had a beer that was bottled on the island, and it's the only beer I've ever liked.  I can remember eating breakfast at a hotel restaurant with all the windows and doors open and tropical gardens.  Beautiful, sugary beaches.  Ahhh...thanks for helping me take this mini-mental-break.  Tell us how it was when you return.

I never felt any kind of pain before I started taking AI's. Now things are falling apart my joints arms and legs. I recently starting have trouble with my right ear and neck. I had an x-ray and they said degenerative arthritis in neck. These pains I feel are all written off as symptoms of AI's. It is very unsettling that I might be ignoring pain that could be reoccurrance in bone or else where. But like you guys I don't want to spend all my time getting scans and worrying about reoccurance.

My onco is the best but nobody knows my body like me.

Thanks for all those who posted their symptoms.