Extreme pain in left collarbone area

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I am caring for my aunt, who has just been diagnosed with bone mets after 2 breast cancer occurrences which each resulted in a mastectomy. Her issue is that the left side of her neck is hurting her terribly. She had an incident that sent her to the emergency room where they wound up doing a chest xray and then a CT scan because she was complaining about pain in her left chest. The CT scan showed bone lesions in the left clavicle (collarbone) and lower left rib. The pain kept getting worse and it became very swollen and hot to the touch and red along the left side of her neck/collarbone. They did biopsy on left lower rib and identified metastasized breast cancer. The oncologist said the xray on the left side did NOT show bone lesion on left clavicle. She ordered pet scan and bone scan which will show all areas of bone cancer for certain. My question is does anybody else have swelling and redness on areas where they have bone mets? Is there anything that helps while we wait to get to the point of radiation? She takes the pain pills (hydrocodeine) but still suffers a lot. Her GP had her do a round of antibiotics after which the swelling and redness seemed to go away for a bit, but the pain never stopped and now it is getting worse again. Has anybody experienced something like this? Thanks for any feedback.

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  • Moderators
    Moderators Member Posts: 25,912
    edited February 2021

    Hi welcome_alb, and welcome to Breastcancer.org.

    We're so very sorry to hear of your aunt's recent progression, though we're really glad you've found our community and decided to reach out. You're sure to find great support and advice here!

    While you'll likely get some answers here, we also wanted to point you to the Bone Mets Thread in the Stage IV forum, where you can ask our members with a similar diagnosis so they can weigh in with their experience.

    We hope this helps and that you get answers soon and that your aunt finds relief soon as well! Please keep us posted with how she is doing.

    --The Mods

  • welcome_alb
    welcome_alb Member Posts: 4
    edited February 2021

    Thank you so much for your very helpful reply. I'm going to let my aunt know that the treatment started relieving the pain quickly for you. It will make her feel like there's hope for relief. Thank you so much for sharing.

  • welcome_alb
    welcome_alb Member Posts: 4
    edited February 2021

    Thank you for the information. I will check out that topic as well.

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