Hello, I have a question about contraception. I have still been taking my combined pill while on chemo. I have double negative and HER2 positive primary breast cancer. I wasn’t told outright to stop taking my pill but on the Younger Women together online course the oncologists says I can’t take it. So should I stop straight away or finish my pack? Also, what effect might it have had so far on my chemo treatment if any? They mentioned having a copper coil fitted but am I allowed to do that now due to the risk of infection in fitting one? I do not want to get pregnant obviously at the moment. Any help would be much appreciated
Hi,
I was also hormone negative and HER 2 positive. I was on the mini pill though instead of the combined.
Like you no one ever told me to come off it. It did come up when I was considering fertility preservation. However when this didn’t happen I ended up saying on the mini pill through out my chemo as no had told me not to!
When I had finished chemo I queried it and basically no one was really sure whether I should be on it or not? If you are hormone positive, yes they advise you don’t take any form of hormonal contraception. However as we are HER 2 there’s no real evidence either way and the pill shouldn’t have caused/accelerated our tumours as they aren’t driven by hormones.
In the end my doctors said they advised erring on the side of caution and not using any hormonal contraception. They advised this as obviously I am now at increased risk of getting cancer (in comparison to someone who has never had cancer) and if my cancer did come back they said it could change from hormone negative to hormone positive. Obviously if this happens then hormonal contraception could speed things up.
There is though no hard and fast evidence for HER 2 people and my team said it was my own decision and that I may want to review this as times goes on.
The coil is an option but possibly not during chemo I’m not sure? I spoke to my breast care nurse, GP and oncologist about it and did quite a bit of research online.
Hope this helps.