I have had a successful lumpectomy, 12 weeks of chemo (finishing up next week) and will next have 15 rounds of radiation therapy. Along with chemo, every three weeks they’ve given me an infusion of hormone therapy via my picc line. Post-chemo, these will become injections into the muscle.
How much do these injections hurt? Sorry to be a baby about this, but I was abused in a hospital as a small child and sitting/lying still while someone hurts me (even for my own good) frightens me so much it nearly stops my heart. I made it through picc line insertion with some encouragement from lovely people here (and my husband sitting outside the room with the door open while they worked, thank goodness), so I’m hoping maybe it will be helpful to hear from kind people again.
Hi @malymoses
So sorry you are finding yourself facing all this “stuff”(being polite here). I can’t answer your question as I didn’t have the hormone jabs, but I know the nurses would talk you through it all on the helpline.
However, I would say that if you can go through 12 weeks of chemo and still sound rational on the subject, then you can deal with ANYTHING in your life. Try and find someone empathetic to do the injections because there are ways of mitigating discomfort from jabs (anaesthetic creams for example). Also you can learn relaxation and distraction techniques that could help.
I wish you well on your treatment path.
Sending love and hugs
Eily 
Hi, the hormone (endocrine) therapy is in tablet form as far as I know and the Zoladex type ones to shut down ovaries are every month or you can have one every 3 months so I was just wondering - are you HER 2 positive? I’m only asking as I got a Herceptin drug (phesgo) along with my chemo every 3 weeks and I know they can do this via IV line with the chemo as well as injection. I got the injections into my thigh every 3 weeks after chemo finished too so I wondered if this is what you meant? I’m on endocrine therapy seperately as I am ER/PR positive too, but the phesgo or Herceptin is a targetted therapy for HER2. If it is this injection then you can use numbing cream on your thigh (just ask for it) and if you tell them to go nice and slow then it doesn’t hurt aside from a little stinging at the start. The slower they go the better. I’m really not good with needles but I actually found it ok when they went slow. Hope this helps
Thanks for the kind reply! I’m in the Czech Republic, where nurses tend to be pretty busy and pragmatic; they’re not the most empathetic bunch in general, though of course there are exceptions. If I could cry on demand…(might help), but I’m not good at that. I will think about distraction techniques. I think if I know that I can count to, say, 100, and it will be over, that might help. Wishing you well, and thanks again for the kind reply.
Thanks for helping to clarify what I mean here. Yes, my tumour (successfully removed; the treatment is to hopefully be pretty sure it will not return) was HER2 positive and it is indeed the injection post-chemo that I’m worried about. I will try asking for the numbing cream. I had to inject myself for four years (autoimmune disease; this is now discontinued until cancer treatment ends) but those shots were really over if I counted to 15. This time I will have to let someone else do the job (have already asked if I could do it myself and been told unambiguously no). Thanks for the encouraging words re: little pain if they go slowly. They tell me the shot takes about 3 minutes, so that sounds hopefully rather slow…(yikes, yikes, yikes)!!
No problem! I couldn’t even inject myself with the tiny filgrastrim ones to boost my white blood cells, so I had been dreading the thigh ones as they’re longer and with where they are. I found sitting and talking to the nurses whilst I was getting it helpful and I got them to show me where to put the (Emla) cream too and even though they went very slow with mines it felt like it went in faster than it did. Just let them know if it’s stinging in the first wee while and they’ll slow it down - if it does sting it’s also only for the first minute then you can’t feel it, and due to the numbing cream you can’t feel the needle going in at all!
There’s a HER2 forum too just in case you want to chat to people there as well… it’s called HER2+ and need some buddies (hopefully the link to it below works if you haven’t already came across it)
That’s helpful:-) I’ll have to chat in my second language (I live in the Czech Republic and most of the nurses don’t speak English) but hopefully ‘my’ nurse will be the pleasant type. I’ll also check with the HER2+ forum - I appreciate the tip!
Aah, @malymoses , I didn’t realise you meant herceptin. We call that a targeted therapy here. Yes I had those for a year and found them painless, as long as they are done very slowly(as someone else has mentioned). If you feel any little sting ask the nurse to slow down.
Just concentrate on how INCREDIBLY powerful they are in combatting the cancer and keeping you alive. Mine were over 6 years ago now and I am very well.
Keep reminding yourself how strong you are to have come so far with your treatments, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.
Good luck
Eily