My beautiful, caring and loving mother has just been diagnosed with liver and bone mets. Was on Arimidex but been stopped by oncologist as starting chemo next week. On bisphosphonate for bone mets. She is getting bad heart burn. Looking at getting radiothearpy as well. Are there any questions we need to ask about other treatment options for both liver and bones.
Hi camcam
So sorry to hear about your Mum’s diagnosis, it is a huge shock when secondaries are diagnosed -as all of us on the ‘secondaries’ part of this forum understand. There are a couple of sections on here with comments from ladies with bone mets (only) and also liver mets (sometimes with mets elsewhere as well) which would be worth reading or asking specific questions on. As to the heartburn your Mum is having, is she taking the tablet form of bisphosphonates? I take the tablet form for my bone mets and they can cause problems like this. At one point I nearly gave them up and wanted to go back onto the IV (infusion) that I used to have but they have got better and I tolerate them pretty well most of the time. It is worth mentioning this to her oncologist. As to the chemo, my understanding is that it will treat both type of mets that she has and her oncologist will take that into account with which particular regime she is put on. I had 6 lots of FEC chemo on my diagnosis but my mets are contained in my bones, other women with both liver and bone mets have had other chemos, but possibly this type would be used as well. Radiotherapy can be given to the areas of bone that may be causing pain but isn’t always given on diagnosis as it can generally only be given to that area once. It can be used later on if the area/s of bone mets cause pain. I hope this answered some of your questions but have a look at the Liver Mets thread (and bone mets thread) - they both may help a bit more. Good luck to your Mum and look after yourself as well - it is very difficult for you to deal with this - I know only too well as my 2 daughters had to deal with my diagnosis and how upseting that is.
Nicky
Thank you Nicky,
Mum had first dose of chemo today.She is on low dose of chemo, was given by syringe not infusion. 25 was mentioned but not sure if this was milligrams or what as don’t know how it is measured.Worried that it is small amount, she does suffer from low platelets which has been a
problem for a few years. She is also starting 6 day course of dexamethasone.Seeing onc in 2 weeks time to see how treatment going.
Does this all sound about right? Chemo is all very new to us, she had radiotherapy 4 years when she had reoccurance after 16 years.Confusing things is that there appears to be no new reoccurance of cancer in breast area.