Bone pain

Hi Christy, good to hear from you and good to hear that you have started treatment.

Increased pain can indeed happen, my SCN always said ‘no pain no gain’….. She explained that the chemo will be attacking every area of the body and some areas will present pain as the cancer areas are broken down. The chemo will also damage surrounding tissue and often nerves so often the pain increases as a result of the treatment doing it’s job.

Are you getting G-CSF Injections  - FILGRASTIM or similar following your treatment?

One side effect of these injections is all over bone pain especially down your back. These injections are designed to make your bone marrow work over time and produce more  neutrophils…… but I had no real bone pain and I was in these injections daily for 4 months.

I took a few Paracetamol with breakfast then did the injection. But I was also prescribed Piriton or Clarityn Antihistamine by my teams as this bizarrely stopped most of the pain developing, these were taken as per the dose instructions - worth talking your team about this as not a lot of hospitals do this.

Hi Mike 

Thanks for getting back to me. I know the paint not coming from the injections as I haven't taken anything like that. 

My vertebrae pain was there subtly prior to starting chemo but now is more intense. So as you say maybe it's the chemo doing it's job. 

I got worried that maybe it was the disease rather than the treatment causing escalated pain. 

The only marker that I have that chemo may be working is the lymph node above my shoulder blade on my neck. Since my first treatment it has significantly reduced in size so I'm hoping that's good 

Thanks 

So to me it sounds like the chemo is doing it’s stuff.

I have had Thoratic & Lumber Spondylosis - Spinal Osteoarthritis for years and did find there was more pain in these areas but over 6 years out from my last treatment I have no issues with my Osteoarthritis to the point I removed all my pain meds from my repeat prescription….. my Stem Cell Consultant says that this can happen but not sure how it happens

If you a noticing reduction on your raised Lymph node that is enough proof that the treatment is kicking in.

As always you talk this through with your clinical team as although folks in these group are well experienced we are not medics ((hugs))

Thanks  Mike 

Yes I'm just trying to settle myself and see my reduction in lymph node on neck as a positive reaction to the chemo. 

My team didn't say much about the back just use rest and pain relief. 

Christy 

Interesting  - I was told the opposite being told to try and have regular controlled activity and pain relief.

From my experience based on my various treatments the less I did the longer the recovery and the more the pain hung around.

During my second Stem Cell Transplant (SCT) I was so ill that I was basically bedbound for 3 of the 4 weeks that included a few stays in CCU. This resulted in massive muscle loss to the point I landed up in a wheelchair and the pain was off the scale…… but during my first SCT I actually had an exercise bike in my room and I was able to be on it most days……. I had no muscle or pain problems.