Erm… this came on about 9pm last night, along with the return of dreadful nausea.Eventually managed some sleep, with help os some pills, have woke this morning with extreme lower backpain, no nausea. I cannot bend. At all. The pain is severe. This is day 7/8 after 1st taxatere. has anyone experienced this? Is this normal?
bumping this up for you.
I would contact your chemo helpline for their advice Tree just to be on the safe side.
Good luck for the rest of your treatment.
Hi Tree
Lower back pain is on the list of se’s for Tax, but not sure if extreme pain of the type you are experiencing is. I think Judy is right - call your bcn or chemo nurse just to be sure.
fintyx
Yes I had exactly the same thing after my first tax, it was truly dreadful, I could hardly move. I took the full dosage of paracetamol & diclofenac (a strong anti-inflamatory which is prescription only that we happened to have in the house after my daughter had had back problems) - if you don’t have that opt for ibuprofen, take the full dose of both that & paracetamol and you should get some relief.
For subsequest tax’s, start taking maximum dose painkillers before the pains start - that will help to ward them off
Hi tree its was normal for me TAX is a strong drug it does affect your bones i took pain killers strong of the doctor It does ease of after a while hang on in there
Hi Tree
Have you had a neulasta jab. I would get severe back pain on day 6 after tax and was told it was the neulasta stimulating my bone marrow. So the marrow swells and causes the pain. I took codeine and paracetamol. The good news was it past in about 12 hrs. Hope you are ok. I would still suggest you phone the chemo unit. Dx
Thank you so much for your responses. They are very interesting because I did have that injection…
I phoned the chemo unit this morning, and was told to come in and Ive been here all day.
However, the onc sent me for a stomach x-ray and then said it was (rather embarrassingly) constipation.
Then eventually sent me home with 3 enemas to give myself. nice.
Is there no end to the pain, embarrassment and humiliation with all this?
Ah well, I just hope the pain goes now.
Thanks again everyone.
x
Oh you poor thing - the constipation from chemo is horrific. Have they given you anything to take next time? I’ve forgotten the name of it (lactolose maybe?) but there’s a very sweet liquid that comes in a white bottle that they give to lots of us - it worked well for me - started taking it a couple days before each chemo and for a week or so afterwards.
They gave me some quite shocking things actually 
but I will know to ask for preemptive sweetliquid for next time, or stock up on the senacot (?) Still in quite a bit of pain tho…
I think its very hard to prepare yourself for everything you might encounter during all this…so many possibilities.
Finty you are always so supportive to everyone, and so knowledgable about everything, surely there’s a special breast nurse or councelling job waiting for you out there…
Anyway, I hope you are doing ok. xx
Many thanks for all your support and advice.
You’re very kind tree - happy to help. It’s very hard to prepare for the dreadful constipation as the list of se’s also includes diarrhoea - so if you guess wrong you could be in real trouble! xx
Hi tree i took medicine on the day of my chemo for bout 5 days till my bowels went back to normal got it from gp called lactilose worked for me i found steroids and anti-sickness tablets make you constipated as well so the medicine was great
Hi,
Hope you don’t mind me butting in. The liquid you need is called Lactulose and you can also take powder sachets called Movicol. You can take both together and take them a few days before you expect the symptoms to kick in as they work slowly. Hopefully that will avoid the worst of the symptoms developing. I do think though that the Neulasta injection will have contributed to your pain. I always had severe pain from them. It started like bad cramp in my shoulders and moved down my spine to become severe pain in my lower back. Usually started 2-3 days after the first injection and lasted about 3-4 days. Hope you have a better time after your next session.
Jan xx
Hallo everyone, I am not on Taxatere, but FEC with white cell stimulating injections.
In cycle one at day 9 I was hit by sudden unpleasant lower back pain and bad shakes at the same moment. Phoned the chemo nurses, and was told to go to A&E as a blood test earlier that day had shown very low white cell count and they thought I might have infection. The shaking stopped after an hour. No fever at any time. Had further tests, all negative in the end, and IV antibiotics for 48 hours or so. I developed more pain in my breastbone and had the lower back pain (in the sacrum) for the next 36 hours. My oncologist immediately said this sounded like a reaction to white cell stimulator when he heard about it and said take paracetamol regularly if I got it again. Now at day 11 of cycle two and no similar problems-yet!
My unit used to use Movicol as the preemptive strike against constipation, but pharmacy couldn’t get it recently so I have something very similar called Laxido-tastes yucky but works.
Also made the Go Cake mentioned on the top tips for chemo thread and it is scrumptious-and does what it’s meant to do-makes you go.
I know I am a diet bore but…
When I get lower back pain I blame an over-worked liver and drink more water. I never took laxatives as once I took on my liver-loving surviving-chemo diet regime I have never been so regular!
Tax is tough, very tough and for all the discussion on weather diet will prevent a cancer re-occurance, one thing is for certain, a super chemo-survial diet, definitely lessens chemo se’s.
I only changed my diet after 3 FEC and 1 Tax and two rounds of the injections, so did get a before and after comparison. I did not need the injections after the diet change which made a big difference to the bone pain.
Hi Gretchen
Since being diagnosed I have changed all diary to organic, always have had veggie spread and organic eggs form a local small holder. I have also greatly increased the amount of fruit I eat and water I drink, don’t seem to go anywhere without a bottle of water these days and my digestive system was better with fec3 and so far hardly any impact on it with fec4 but what are the changes you have made as I am really interested in your chemo surviving diet,
Ali.
Hi Ali
It sounds like you are doing well. I was just eating junk (loads of carbs) during fec as I had terrible nausea. Then on Tax the aches were excruitiating. After 3 fec and a tax a met with a nutritionist and changed my diet. The improvements were clear within days.
Chemo is so bad for your liver that whilst on chemo I personally would avoid ALL dairy (and imitation spreads), salt, alcohol, sugar, meat and now, a few months on having learnt a bit more, I would avoid most soya too.
I now juice every morning too and 80% of my diet is fresh vegetables. Personally I enjoy eating like this and still have one day a week where I may have junk food and still eat the the odd cake and have a bit of milk in my tea. BUT on chemo my diet was 100% I didn’t even have one biscuit for about 3 months (and I love my tea and biscuits). To me sacrificing junk food was more important than sacrificing my well being, ability to walk, loss of personality, time with friends and children.
Now I would eat even more vege and I did sprout a lot of legumes and seeds. I get a large family box from able and co every week and that is what I eat.
My 'bible; was from the Cancer Active site
I also have a few books like 'The Liver Cleansing Diet", “Food is Medicine”
Also others on here have recommend Steven Schribier,
GOOD LUCK!
Below was written after Tax 2 or 3:
My diet went a bit like
porridge made with half water half soya milk for breakfast
Smoothie mid-morning (mad with soya milk)
Omelette with loads of veg and salad for lunch
brown rice and steamed vege for dinner
Also
soups made with lots of spices - no salt/stock.
stirfrys made with no soy sauce, just lots of fresh ginger and spice for flavour
salads
quinoa
sprouted seed and legumes
Basically NO processed food.
Salt is very difficult to avoid and I did have a few wholemeal pittas (with no e-numbers) for extra carbs. Bread is not good as commercial bread is loaded with e-numbers.
Exercise is also very.very important. I also went for a 2 hour walk over the downs yesterday
Friends and family are astounded with the huge difference in my personality too, back the the old me.
I hope this helps. It is hard work but worth it!
Hi Ladies,
This diet sounds really interesting, Gretchen. Has anyone else tried it? I’ve had the first of 3 x FEC and 3 x TAX. Can’t say the FEC’s much fun, but feel I can cope with it, but I’m really worried about the TAX.
I’m 58 and I go Scottish dancing every week (well not at the moment!) it’s very lively. I also belong to a ladies Garland dancing Side (sort of genteel Morris!)and my other hobbies include walking and cycling.
I’d like to continue my hobbies once through the other side of things so prospect of joint and muscle pains - possibly lingering as well - not filling me with much glee.
I’ve been drinking milk instead of tea - tea tastes horrible and I was trying to get a few extra calories in as lost weight during the first week after FEC. I’ve also found a liking for chicken, so thought that might help so have had some for lunch every day with salad; have been keeping up the 5 a day. Looks like I may have chosen the wrong things - they just seemed eatable.
I’ve been walking a mile or so every day (apart from the first two, but slower than my usual pace - guess it’s the lack of red cells - I’m at Day 10 now.
I’ll look up the site.
Best wishes to you all. Stella
Hi Tree,
This is my first ever post so i’m a newbie as my teenagers would say ! I’ve been following different comments but never knew which one to join as a lot of ladies are on FEC - it’s quite confusing, I’ve just started TAC x 6 nine days ago and it’s such a relief to know my se’s are ‘normal’ had nausea straight away but no sickness then came the constipation which i thought i was prepared for! But when that pain started in my shoulders and gradually went down my back, i thought it was me sitting too long on the sofa, i had an injection everyday for 7 days after chemo called Lenograstim to boost white blood cells, so now thinking this is whats caused it but thankfully in day 9 now and feel so much better today and on this planet.The liquid sounds good so i will get some for next time,I don’t know how i would of got this far without the advice from all the fantastic ladies here and following their experiences.
HI Stella
I can’t say too much about FEC as I did not change my diet until I started the tax. The nausea for me was horrendous but after about a week I felt mostly back to normal, it is the Tax that is so tough. Keep up the exercise, very important to help with fatigue.
As your liver gets more of a battering the effects increase. Water may not taste nice but it is the best drink to have.
I also had very low white blood cell count and had to have the injections as my first two chemos were delayed. Whne I changed my diet I didn’t do the injections (against my onc advice) and my wbc went up to 5.4
There is a lot of strong feeling about diet on this forum. I was at risk of losing my business and going bankrupt if I did not work during my chemo so that is why I could stick to such a radical diet.
Hi Gretchen, I will certainly try it.
Really at the moment I just eat anything that seems palatable cos I have to, so try to make sure I get some protein and fruit and veg. Apart from cooking some different things and missing others out, I don’t feel I’d miss anything much. Maybe I’d miss it in week 3, but it would be worth it - what is there to lose?
All being well I’m going to Pembrokeshire in the morning with OH, to stay in a friends very modern caravan, so won’t be on the forum for a few days. Hope to get some walks by the sea.
Best wishes. Stella