I am terminally ill, diagnosed in 2011 and still fighting but have secondary cancers of the spine, liver and lungs with breast being my primary. My main secondary cancer is my bone cancer. I am in constant pain of one form or another and this week just before the New Year finished my last session of Zometa (Ibadronic Acid) and have been on Anastrazole most of this year. I was on Tamoxifen before the change but new tumours had developed in my liver so hence the change in drugs.
I was advised to see a specialist at the DOK here in Reading and after consultation and having seen my bone scan which is not a pretty sight believe me of the amount of black which is cancer of my bones, she came out and told me that I had arthritis!! I have severe pains in my hands and cant explain it and this Palliative Care Consultants said it is arthritis and has given me ibuprohen to take to alleviate it. Has this happened to anyone out there? I am not due to see my Oncologist until the end of the month but will ask them when we next visit.
I wondered if any of you wonderful people out there could enlighten me of your experiences or not. Thank you
Cookie17
Hi, what pain killers are you on? When I presented with bone met and pain of 8/10 on a 10 point scale I was prescribed I ibrufen and cocodomol. My onc (top onc) was extremely unhappy with these as painkiller as in his words with ibrubrfen he had literally seen too much blood on the carpet and codine based pain relief doesn’t work ( see the radio 4 programme painfu medicine on Google to confirm this too). The most up to date bone juicing drug is denusomab which has the best results. The hormone treatment is well known to also cause quite severe pain! I was prescribed fentanyl patches which last 72 hours and arthrotec 75 which has bought my pain down to a 1/10. It has also removed me from constantly taking tablets which really helps me have a life not dictated by a tablet schedule. These drugs aren’t the cheapest but my experience with my onc is that he is at the cutting edge of treatments and he gets the best for his patients. Ethel x
Hi cookie, just read your post and really sorry to hear that you have to take up to 50 tablets a day!!! Just want say something about the patches and them not sticking, i work in a pharmacy and there are a lot of patients on morphine patches that have the same problem as you, they get prescribed mepore or tegaderm dressings to put over the top to keep the patch in place, maybe this is worth looking into???
hugs Janette x