I completed my treatment for a grade 3 breast cancer in the middle of June. This consisted of Chemotherapy ( FEC-T), mastectomy and radiotherapy. I continue with Herceptin until early next year.
I suffered with awful muscle aches and pains in my thighs, sometimes making it difficult for me to get upstairs. It was particularly worse when I started the Doxetaxol and Herceptin. 5 months after completing chemo, I have a problem with very stiff legs ( thighs). This is affecting my knees. I do have arthritis in one and had a total knee replacement to the other knee in January 2014. But before the chemo I was walking well and very fit for my age (65), cycling, swimming riding. I wonder if anyone else is suffering the same symptoms? It is getting me down as I am feeling so much better in myself and am trying so hard to get fit again. Walking was my passion but I am struggling. Lindylou3
Hi Lindylou,
I don’t come on here very often these days, but saw your post had no replies. I had my treatment years ago (2007, then herceptin throughout 2008). I did chemo (FEC-T) then rads then herceptin - I think it was while I was on herceptin that they changed the protocol and started giving it with the chemo. So my experience was a bit different from yours. Possibly having it together makes all the side effects worse?
I am a runner, I found I could run all through FEC, but Tax really took it out of me, and I could barely manage a mile by the end. It seems to attack the thigh muscles in particular. After Tax finished, I slowly built up my mileage again, and was fine until about nine months into herceptin when it all started going backwards again. I discovered that this is quite normal (up until then all I had heard about was the lack of debilitating side effects of herceptin) - up to six months or so everything is fine then serious tiredness/lack of energy kicks in. So I was back to square one, struggling to run a mile again. When herceptin finished the tiredness persisted for a while, but I carried on running and slowly got better. I firmly believe that I recovered better because I carried on exercising throughout, no matter how little I could do. I kept on pushing myself that little bit further and got there.
So I think you need to continue doing whatever you can for now, but don’t lose heart because it may take a while after you have finished the herceptin to see any improvement.