Sadly over the past two months I have experienced increased pain which I was being offered pain killers
and anti nausea medications that did not work. After a solid month of vomiting everyday I insisted on
going to urgent care because I was so dehydrated. They did a CScan and found the cancer had spread to
lining of abdomen and increased on the surface of my lung.
I was offered a slot in trial Phase I/II Study of MM-121 in Combination with Erlotinib in Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer but did not qualify due to my history with Psoriasis.
I am now going to be treated with Alitma once every three weeks and continue to take Tarceva 100 mg.
My dosage was dropped from 150 to 100mg a little over a week ago.
Any suggestions for handling the side effects?
I've read (not vetted) about fasting a few days prior to chemo making it more effective.
I was wondering if there was any truth to this, since I have no appetite anyway.
Reply # - July 30, 2012, 06:51 PM
Reply To: Progressed on Tarceva now adding Alitma….any
minni,
I'm very sorry to hear of your recent progression, both in terms of worse symptoms and imaging.
I don't know of any data and would be more concerned about a patient becoming very weak after both fasting and chemo. I confess I'm not remotely enthusiastic about this concept. Anecdotally, my patients who happen to be fasting, or all but fasting, before chemo because of poor appetite seem to do more poorly rather than better than many of my other patients.
Good luck with the Alimta (pemetrexed). It's certainly among our more active drugs against non-squamous NSCLC, especially adenocarcinoma, and it's also often quite well tolerated.
-Dr. West
Reply # - July 30, 2012, 08:19 PM
Reply To: Progressed on Tarceva now adding Alitma….any
Dr West
Thanks so much for the sympathy, advice and encouragement.
I will fix myself something to eat right now.
Minni
Reply # - July 31, 2012, 01:27 AM
Reply To: Progressed on Tarceva now adding Alitma….any
Really sorry to hear this and hope that the Alimta works well for you. As Dr West says, a number of people here have had good experiences with it.
I found with chemotherapy that I went off a lot of different types of food, so my suggestion is to eat pretty much anything that appeals. Now is the time for all those friends who offered to do something to bring round something small but tempting! Best of luck with the new combination.