Pain after chemo

Chemo can produce all kinds of phenomena, which sometimes includes pain in the breast. I had that during chemo, but mine was directly related to the tumour. Are you able to contact your nurse? Also, if the pain intensifies, definitely tell the chemo people and your nurse.

Hi Greycats, thanks for the reply.  I’m now ten days after chemo and the pain has gone, I also noticed my breast feels a bit numb at the time, it’s a strange thing, but I’ll mention it to my BCN. 

Yeah. I tend to do the same, especially when I am unsure of what a phenomenon is all about. 

You said earlier the cancer has spread. How did they determine this? Have they said where to?

Initially they found two nodules in my lungs and told me it was covid related, unfortunately that was not the case, after a pet scan and a biopsy it was confirmed as cancer, albeit scant, it was there, so no mastectomy or lumpectomy.  That is when they found the the breast cancer.  I wish they wouldn’t rely on Ct scans as I had three before anyone mentioned cancer and the breast cancer didn’t show up on them. 

This is interesting. My experience is almost the exact opposite: they found the breast cancer first, then scanned me top to bottom and told me I had mets on my lungs, treated me for about 11 months based on that. Then the lungs "mets" were plucked out (two separate surgeries,) sent to pathology, and found to be all kinds of things but NOT breast cancer. So I agree with you that scans are not always reliable, but it is not always the scan's fault; it is the people who interpret the images, and in my case, probably an unhealthy dose of hubris for that MDT to insist even after I queried, that the stuff on my lungs was breast cancer, only for a thoracic surgeon to take one look at one image, months later, and tell me he didn't think so. 

The reason I am telling you all of this is that I went into the lung surgery while being considered a metastatic patient, and my oncologist was even talking about a lumpectomy or a mastectomy regardless of the staging. I am not sure if this was wholly the result of the way my cancer presented, or because of how insistent I was regarding surgery. So, if you are interested in surgery, it may be worth bringing it up again at a suitable point and see what response you get. 

Wow, that’s really interesting, I think I’ll wait till my next scan and bring it up again, by then I’ll have had two more rounds of chemo. Thanks for all the information it’s been great chatting to you.  I’ll keep you posted and let you know how I get on. Xx

Yes, please do. I will be keeping an eye on this thread, and you can always start a new one if you prefer, when you have more news. 

Talking of scans, when I was first diagnosed I was told there were three mets -- two in one lung, one in the other. A couple of scans that were done at the same time a few months later said something along the lines of, "no change; there are still five mets." I basically hit the effing roof and demanded to know which report was lying, and why -- was it the first one that said there were three of them, or the later one that said five? This escalated into a shouting episode in the corridors of the hospital, I was absolutely livid and asked an oncology resident, quite audibly, how many people they have killed. I never got satistfactory answers, but it turned out there were indeed five "thingies," which meant the false information was to do with the first report. Once the "thingies" were taken out I was no longer concerned about them, but whoever wrote that first report would have needed a stiff talking to, which I hope they got after all the noise I made. 

I have an appointment with a lung specialist in a few weeks perhaps they will be able to shed some light on the matter. X