Her2 positive. Scared but looking forward.....

Hi and a very warm welcome to the online community

I'm very sorry to hear that you were recently diagnosed with breast cancer and I can understand what a difficult time this will be for you.

It's natural to be nervous about possible side effects of the drugs you are taking but your hospital team will try and do all they can to minimize these if you tell them about them as they occur.

I don't have any experience with these drugs but by replying to you it will 'bump' your post back to the top of the discussions list where hopefully someone with the right experience will be along shortly.

Wishing you all the best

x

Hi

a warm welcome to the community, though sorry you have a need for us. 

Your treatment sounds very similar to treatment in the UK. A massive well done on getting through the first 2 cycles! 

My treatment was several years ago, but I found the Tax a very different beast to the EC - I had Docetaxel and had no nausea and less tiredness. I did lose some fingernails and had some joint pain though but paracetamol helped with the joint pain. Everyone is different though so I can't promise you it will be OK. 

As you said, we do it anyway, don't we? - and actually probably don't give ourselves enough credit for that at the time.

As latchbrook said, your post has fallen down the list a little so this reply will bump it back up again. The breast cancer group is very busy and we get a lot of posts every day so always feel free to bump your own post.

I'm going to give you a link to the breast cancer chemo thread - it's a thread we set up once a month for everyone going through chemo to get together and share tips and advice. It can be a bit easier for people to see your post there and it may be somewhere you find support as you get through it all.

Hope you get some reassurance from some others soon and I'll keep my fingers crossed that the Tax is kind to you!

R

Hi I am undergoing similar treatment. Can I ask how your treatment went please.  Best wishes xx

Hi Shaz52

It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Much less aggressive than the EC.

I did however come out in a horrendous rash about week 5  and it became so severe the stopped the chemo at week 10.   I was really worried about that  but was told 9 was the magic number. 

I then moved onto injections every 3 weeks.  My hair started to grow again. I did have really bad leg ache at night,  and the doc prescribed paracetamol and slow release tramadol.  This helped, and at the last visit he added a monthly dose of vitamin D which has almost solved the problem.

I had surgery after the chemo,  at which they removed my nipple,  a large area under it and some lymph nodes.  Thankfully the tumours had responded well to treatment, and the surgeon got chest margins too. the radiotherapy consultant said it was one of the best responses to chemo he had seen,  so as you can imagine I was happy. 

Following that I had 33 sessions of radiotherapy. They were really tiring,  more to do the the daily trip back and forth. And I burnt a bit at the end. 

So I now have 3 more herceptin injections booked and then I'm just on hormone tablets for the next 5 to 10 years. 

I have a mammogram, ultrasound and mri booked for April, along with a consultation. The original tumours didn't show up on the mammogram or ultrasound, so I insisted on an mri.

I feel fairly positive. I'm still very scared it will come back  but think that is normal. I'm slowly getting my stamina back, and now have very curly hair. 

I wish you luck in your treatment.  If you want to pm me with questions or for a chat, feel free.  X