Herceptin side effect .. eye irritation and 'hay fever'

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Am posting this in hopes that it will be helpful to others.

Since August 08 I’ve been having Herceptin and Pamidronate every three weeks, originally alongside 6 x Taxotere.

Some time during each treatment cycle I’ve always developed a problem with one or both eyes: red, irritated, gummy, stingy, dry, which would go on for days and be really uncomfortable. I also get a really runny nose, sometimes bunged up, sneezing.

I originally assumed that the eye problem was an infection/conjunctivitis due to reduced immune system because of the chemo, so treated it with antibiotic eye drops, but this didn’t help. Had also read that a drippy nose was a recognised Herceptin side effect so just put up with it. Didn’t associate the two.

Anyway, after a few months of me complaining about my eyes, my doctor suggested treating the eye problem as an allergy rather than an infection and gave me some eye drops to use, called ‘Cromolux 2%’. This really helped relieve the discomfort.

Then recently I decided to try taking an ordinary anti-allergy medication at the beginning of each treatment cycle as well. I’m using loratedine as a liquid called ‘Clarityn’ which is for hay fever and other allergies, and I’ve found that the two together do really manage the side effects.

Anyway, hope this is useful for anyone else in same/similar situation.

Best wishes.

Alison

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Hi Alison,

Allergic reactions with herceptin are not uncommon. If you tell your onc they they will add piriton as a pre-med with the herceptin. Don’t know if that will help you.

Dawn
xx

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Hi Dawn

I’ll get them to try that, thanks. Ho hum, are you like me in that you’re now having treatments to counteract the treatments to counteract the treatments to counteract …??

Puts me in mind of this wonderful comic record that my parents used to have, called ‘The Gasman cometh’ or something like that. He repairs something to the gas on the monday, which affects the electricity, or the water, so the next engineer is called out on the tuesday, which does something to something else (my memory fails me!), in the end we get back round to Sunday and it’s the gas that’s affected so the gasman comes back out again the following monday and the whole rigmarole starts again. Hilarious.

Alison x