Mets to Ribs & Pelvis?

Hi, shelly56. i havent been diagnosed with mets to ribs and pelvis, but i have been so persistantly "complaining" of pain there and everywhere, for a year, that they are finally going to do a bone scan on me this week. i am not really sure its mets at all, i think it quite possibly WAS the arimidex, fotr sure was causing massive pain, and then for the last 5 months, tamoxifen WAS doing the very same thing. i got to go on a one month tamox break, and some of the pain resolved. just barely. so i got to stay off of it for the rest of the month, 6 weeks altogether, now, and it is marginally better. the bone scan would show cancer, arthritis, cartilidge damage, and inflammation. heres hoping that it is not cancer, but i would just really like to stop hurting!!! there is a thread called if you are not stage 4 but have questions. one lady, a very good one, chrissyb, is great at answering questions, and has a serious fund of knowledge, and great compassion. are you doctors trying to get to the bottom of it? i had swollen lymph nodes last month that they had to biopsy, not fun, but was causing rather severe pain on my ribcage, cancer side. benign. good luck to you.

Shelly, I had a bone scan for pain in hip and ribs just last week, I sure do understand where you're coming from!

From my obsessive googling (I know, bad idea), it seems like bone mets can feel a lot like other bone issues or can have no symptoms at all, it varies from person to person and met location to met location.  

Based on what my onc and the NM tech told me, a bone scan (not DEXA) will "light up" on places the bone has been damaged, so bone mets, but also arthritis and inflammation can have a similar look on the scan.  Mine were inconclusive and I now have a PET-CT scheduled for tomorrow (weather permitting, ug).  

But, again as I understand it, as part of ALARA and Image Wisely thinking, the goal is to start with the least radiation tests and work up, so that's why they started with the bone scan first--it can rule out bone mets (at lease non-microscopic mets) but can also have false positives.

Wising you comfort and great results!

Roses-toeses...sorry to hear of what your going through...will for sure be thinking of you and hoping all is well. It all gets so exhausting..tests, fear, dark thoughts and so on! We're here for you so keep us up-dated.

Shelly56...also sorry for your concerns and hope they too prove to be nothing related to cancer. I don't have much insight to add in regards to scans, but posting on the IV stage forum will be helpful to you I hope. Keep us posted!

Thanks for the good wishes, much appreciated--I'm trying to keep telling myself it's nothing until they tell me otherwise.

Shelly, my rib pain was in the back and only if I leaned like on a chair at just the right height that would hit the 9th rib.  Yes, I think bone scan is good.  I am a missionary here in Costa Rica and we don't even have pet scanners yet.  I will have another bone scan this month to check and see how it is going after 5 months of treatment.  Blessings

Thank you so much Shelly.  Praying there is nothing going on there.  Blessings

Shelley, I was dx'd in Jan of this year w/bone mets to ribs, pelvis and a few other places, and I had absolutely no idea I had anything going on until I became extremely sick in mid-December with chest congestion and severe rib pain that Urgent Care docs initially dx'd as bronchitis, a severe viral infection, pleurisy, and rib inflammation.  I'd had no pain in my ribs or anywhere else even the week before I got so sick, and I had x-rays twice looking for maybe a broken rib that never saw any mets.  It finally took a visit to my onc -- because I was so sick and not able to shake whatever was going on (totally out of character for me) -- that showed a significant spike in my CA27-29, as well as my liver enzymes.  A CTScan finally saw the lesions.

Between January and now, I had also been limping around with what I called "mobility issues," as I waited for MRI's scheduled @ UCLA (my ins. co. has 2x denied a PETScan) to pin down the extent of my bone mets.  Long story short, after several weeks of increasing leg pain that I and my docs thought might be coming from a disc, I ended up in the ER on 3/23 with truly excruciating leg pain, and was shocked to find out I had a fractured femur and a fracture in my pelvis that necessitated pinning my leg and a total hip replacement on 3/25.  Still waiting on the pathology report, but the MRI I had in the ER suggests significant bone mets in my pelvis -- which never really hurt that much.

I'm sharing all of this b'cuz I think it illustrates what Roses-Toses wrote above -- that bone mets can feel like a lot of other issues, and may not even hurt where you're having the actual problem.   I also had a great DexaScan a few months ago that showed a significant increase in bone mass, which I find so hard to reconcile with this new dx.

I hope and pray that neither you nor Roses-Toses nor Kathec nor anyone else is dealing with a recurrence, but thought my very recent experience might shed some light.  The bottom line is,  if you are experiencing persistent pain over several weeks, don't worry if it doesn't sound like someone else's pain or experience.  We're all different, and we know better than anyone else when something isn't right with our bodies.      (((Hugs)))  Deanna

If we go to see Dr for all pains and aches we have to rent hospital room. I learned not worry so much for all the aches and pains unless it is for more than one week, persistent and localized.