TORADOL (ketorolac) linked to Recurrence Prevention

I'm new here. I'm not lurking, just catching up on all this important reading and trying to prepare for my own surgery on the 5th. Thank you all for providing such vital information as well as your experiences. So valuable.

Rainy, thank you for the draft of your letter to your docs. It's very helpful!

Asher, I haven't logged on in a while and just saw your note about my letter. I hope it got good results if you used something like that. More important, I hope your surgery went well!

I am scheduled for port surgery on Wednesday the 9th of August. I just left the consult and I am happy to report I copied all the info and the Dr letter I found here as well as each of the professional info and clinical trial and gave it to my surgeon. It was a very hard sell, but he agreed to do the ketorolac preincision. I can't believe this iam so happy. Thank you everyone for sharing this info and giving us the tools to be active participants in our cancer journey.

Thanks Sassy. Just had the ketorolac waiting to go in for the port placement probably 30 minutes. The are going to use propophol. They are afraid they won't be able to numb it completely with just local. But nothing else no versed or narcotics it is a difficultl port they will use the jugular vein on the left side. I hope I wake up with a port placed :

I printed this post from Sas-

Apr 12, 2016 09:53AM - edited Apr 12, 2016 11:02AM by sas-schatzi

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/73/topics...

Then I printed each article in full. I also copied TectonicShi's post about her port experience and raised cancer markers in her blood.

It was about 34 pages, in a bounded booklet, in protective inserts,(that way I used both sides of the inserts easier to turn pages and read), a table of contents with tabs acrossed the top for each article and tabs down the side with chapters.

Title page:

Pre-incision Ketorolac and Surgery

Introduction- letter to the Dr.

Cancer recurrance studies

Personal story

Risk of Bleeding

The meeting was about 45 minutes, it didn't start out well, he was very much against this, but did listen. I told him this book was his to keep, if it doesn't help me, maybe it will help someone else after he read it more in detail. I would rather bleed to death, than die of breast cancer, he knew I was very sure this was what I wanted. I doubt I would have gone through with this without the ketorolac. I did have my own on hand incase I decided to take it without the surgeon's knowledge. I did not know if 3- 10 mg tablets would be as effective as IV 30 mg. Hense my insistance on no sedation. But that became a moot point when he agreed, and I sure was happy. I doubt I would have just taken it, I probably would have just canceled the surgery and did without a port and risk serious lymphodema from the piclines and blood draws, I seem to have more issues than most with these things. I am happy to have my port.

He first said, that he could not in good conscience go into surgery without a plan B and with the subclavian port there was no option if I started to bleed. I asked about a different vein. He could use the right jugglar vein. He could use pressure if needed. I got him thinking. Then I informed him he could not place my port on the right. It needed to be radiated. He said left juggler is not a straight path, would require 3 turns and each turn could cause a kink and could force a failure of the port. I just said to him, but you can do it, can't you? It was a challenge then, and he was up to it. I was so happy. My port is just fine and works great, so far. The surgery took about 1 hour 15 min. The ketorolac was administered IV at about 1 +/_ 15 minutes hours before the surgery began. I believe the anti-inflamatory properties were well instilled by then. I had very little pain after and never did need any pain meds even after the lidocaine wore off.

Sas, I am not on any medications except pre and post chemo steroids. No BP meds. I did have the ketorolac pre op, but probably no more than an hour or so before the incision.

You guys are awesome for keeping up with all this!

Cindy

Hi,

I had a bilateral mastectomy on 8/7. I just came across this thread. In recovery t^{hey came at me with this big liquid bottle. I asked the nurse what it was, she told me it was ketorolac, a heavy duty anti-inflammatory. I even came home with a few pills of it but never used, maybe I should have. My PS is an oncologist reconstructive PS and does not like to use any other drugs. I remember him telling me prior to surgery that he would give me a block so that I'd be good for a few days. Honestly I can say, I really had no pain from when I woke up until now. Just some tightness from the implants, and some zings from where the sentinel nodes were taken out.}

Wonder why they all don't use it especially since the concern these days are with addiction to Opioids.

Sas, very interesting. Really. It's great to see many women researching and finding studies etc. It's so hard, we have to advocate for ourselves or at the very least, gather any information we can and place it out there to our Dr's. With a dx of cancer, anything we can arm ourselves with to help during, before or after and in the long run is a plus in my book. I'm still learning. Been looking at diet changes, melatonin, turmeric, D3...etc.. going all over to read and see what's new and old etc.

I had looked up comparisons of Ketorolac to any other type of anti-inflammatory. Was wondering if t^{here was something in same class we could take that perhaps would help further to reduce reccurrance. I know some look-see's have been done with Aspirin use.}

Thanks!

I found the book and would love to read it, but I don't have $130. I found the free previews very readable, just too expensive for my financial situation.

Good to hear! I was morbidly obese at surgery (not anymore), and requested and received the intraoperative Toradol, thanks to this thread. Also took the pills for a few days after surgery. I need to send this to my surgeon, who tried to talk me out of it!