Dear all posting on the thread about cap and side effects. Don’t know how to get this to join onto it but wanted to thank you as have found it very useful. Have started cap post surgery two weeks ago. Just had third week off. Feet have been unbearably painful so helpful to read to be honest with onc who I’m am seeing tomorrow as didn’t want him to reduce dose in case it reduces effectiveness. (Have triple neg breast cancer with ‘residual’ potentially do think preventative measure - nothing visibly spread anywhere on CT scans). But now will tell him. Have been depressed as to how debilitated it has made me and how lost fitness simply from not being able to walk - dog similarly unfit/depressed! Pls can you advise me how you can monitor effectiveness of treatment? He wants me to do 6 cycles till end Oct 2017. My dose is 3500 over two weeks 3 tablets am and 4 tablets pm and I am 9 stone/5’6 and 48. Treated At Marsden. Some bloating and D but only the feet that matter, red blistering painful swollen. Recovering somewhat now - just as due to start the next two week cycle!! Any advice welcome. Wearing trainers and socks, raising legs, putting ice bootees on at night but still feet pulsate/throb. Makes you wonder what else it is doing but hopefully nuking any little C cells for one thing.
Best wishes to all, ‘mybreastcancerlife’ x
Hello OneStep, sorry to read you are struggling with your feet. I think, from reading your post, that you have been reading the Cape thread (I will come back to posting on there shortly), which is probably the best way forward. You mention ice booties at night (never heard of those!), but you don’t mention if you are moisturising your feet. Cape is an incredibly drying chemo, which causes a lot of the problems. Please do moisturise your feet whenever possible. As for creams, there are many useful tips on the Cape thread - you need to find the one that suits you best. By the way, many of the cheaper ones are as good as, if not better than, the expensive ones. A lot of people seem to find Aveeno very good (not the cheapest, but certainly not the most expensive either). Please also try to stay off your feet as much as possible when they are bad (not easy, I know).
As for joining the Cape thread when you want to post: open up the thread, and you should see tthe Reply box somewhere on the screen. I think it is usually under each individual post. I know the screens look different on my tablet to how they look on my phone, but just look for a box saying Reply. Click on that, and a typing box appears. Type your post in the larger box (I can’t tell you how many times I have tried typing in the Subject box by mistake), and click on Post if you are happy with it. Even if you have posted your reply and then find something wrong with it you can edit your reply. Near the top (?) of your post there is a box with a drop down arrow which says Options. If you click on that, you can see what you can do - including edit your post, or delete it, and several other things. The Edit option is the one I usually use, to correct typing errors mainly.
I hope this has been helpful. If in doubt, contact the Forum Moderators, and they are always glad to help.
Hugs. Barton.x
Hi onestepforward.
Sorry you are suffering with one of the main side effects of Capecitabine. I see Barton has given good advice as usual and hopefully you can also start adding to the main Capecitabine thread by following her instructions. It’s useful to add any queries you have to this thread as someone is bound to pick it up and answer - sometimes we miss other threads, oops!
Im sure you have read on the main thread that a dose reduction can help with bad side effects so it is worth mentioning how bad your feet are when you next are in clinic. The oncs want to keep you on Cape for as long as it’s working and the side effects aren’t too bad so they will normally make adjustments so you can tolerate the SEs better. I was in a 20% reduction for the whole time I was on Cape (18 months) and it worked just as well, shrinking my liver mets and keeping bones stable, until my cancer got wise to the chemo and I had to change treatment. Also, as far as I know, the dose for am and pm is usually the same but maybe you have been told to take different amounts? Maybe worth checking just in case it has been split the wrong way.
Anyway I hope you get some relief, as Barton has said make sure you moisturise your feet as much as possible, I used Boots own brand cracked heel balm on them as it has a high urea content (25%) which is the active ingredient that helps keep feet from drying out.
Nicky x
Thank you so much for your suggestions explaining so clearly shall try get back on to it. Much appreciated.
Dear Nicky, thank you so much for the above. So good to hear it can work for quite a long time even on lower dose. Saw onc yesterday and went down from 3500 to 3100 so hoping it will help! Will try get back onto other thread as per above, so great to find you all on here.