Just been reading about this Jo.  Apparently the side affects are pretty much like going through an abrupt menopause.  Apparently the side affects will lesson as time goes on.  Your body slowly adjusts to the absence of the hormones apparently. ... View more

What sort of target therapy? ... View more

Ok,  well I suppose it's up to you after assessing the risk.  I assume you have exhausted other possibilities for alleviating the side affects.   But have you thought about the side affect of possible loss of peace of mind.  After you're not taking it, will you worry all the time about the cancer coming back?  That may end up making your feel worse.   ... View more

BTW astro,  if your skin starts to break out in all little blisters,  get them to get you on solugell and gauze and dressings. Don't leave it until it's a festering mess.   The stuff is magic.  My skin was literally falling apart at end of week 4.  Once I started on the solugel and dressings,  it was actually healing even as radiation continued each day.   By end of week 7,  it looked better then at end of week 4 ... View more

You'll be fine Astro.  They know where your cancer is.  They only suspected where my primary was, and it had already spread to my lymph nodes.  biggest lump in neck was 32 mm.  There were a couple of small ones too.  Google d-Limonene  if your interested in preserving saliva function.  I started taking it in second week, and kept taking it for about a month after radiation.   I was told my saliva production would not come back,  but it has.  I estimate it is over half now.  This supplement was researched by a radiation oncologist.  Can't remember her name.  in tests on rats they found that rats subjected to radiation lost most of their saliva production and never regained it.  The rats given this supplement didn't lose as much, and regained a lot of the lost production.    This is exactly what has happened with me.  I don't even use mouth gel or carry a water bottle around with me.  I eat pretty much whatever I want without problem for the most part.   They hadn't found out exactly how it works,  but they suspected that it somehow protected stem cells in the saliva glands and these stem cells allowed the the regrowth of gland tissue after treatment stopped.  They found no decrease in the affects on tumors in the rats that took it.   They also did find that it accumulates in the saliva glands.......that much they know. ... View more

Mandz65    When you say there is no cure,  that is not necessarily true.  My brothers neighbor was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 4 years ago.   He is alive and perfectly healthy today with no evidence of disease.  They wont say he is cured,  but he is living life just as he was before he got diagnosed.  Yes he went through hell with surgery,  chemo, and radiation,  but right at this time his scans show all clear.  Perhaps he is just experiencing a long remission, only time will tell.    But there are other people who have survived pancreatic cancer and still test negative several years later.   One thing for sure though, the later you discover it,  the more extreme treatment you will need, and the less chance of success.  No matter what the cause of  your symptoms, you should get them investigated at the earliest possible date.    ... View more

Was the Tamoxifen being used to treat currently detectable breast cancer or as a precautinary measure to prevent recurrence? ... View more

I had 7 weeks of neck radiation.  Actually everything from the bottom of my ears down to collar bones 360 degrees, mouth, throat, the lot.  Was on cisplatin chemo as well.   My skin was falling to pieces after week four.  I had to have it all covered in burn gel, and gauze, and have dressings jigsaw puzzled all over.....no adhesives to my skin. These had to be redone four times a day.  My bro stayed with me and done all my dressings.  Apart from that,  taste went, and everything tasted like shit.  Had a feeding tube in stomach, but only used it for the last week and about a week after treatment.  Skin healed really fast after treatment stopped.  Two weeks after it looked like bran new babies skin.   I don't grow any beard from just under jaw down, and the sides of face is sparse.  My mo and goatee came back to normal.....except most grey hairs were no longer grey, original color again.   Taste started to impove after about a month.  Saliva went to about 25% at worst,  now it's back to about 50% nearly a year later.  Taste is probably around 80%.  I developed lymphadema under jaw and down neck a bit.  Slept with compression thing on at night and that stopped the fluid building up.......while upright I didn't get any build up.  I done lymphatic massage couple times a day as well.   I used a near infared light on my neck and jaw for a couple of months.....now I don't have lymphadema anymore.   Skin is good,  taste is good enough to enjoy food,  saliva is enough that I don't suffer dry mouth, although I seem to have to sip water to get really dry things like crackers down comfortably.   Had sore throat pretty bad for couple of months after treatment,  used numbing liquid for that and that was good.   Now just a slight hint of burning now and then at back of throat.  Had numerous bouts of oral thrush and now gargle a few times a day with a mixture of bicard soda,  salt,  and apple cider vinegar in hot water.   No more thrush.   I do neck stretches daily, and mobility and flexibility is probably better now then at any time in my life.   I had swollen saliva glands that I could feel for a long time,   they have shrunk to almost normal now.   I have mild aches and pains which come and go which on there own aren't severe enough to affect me but have a mental impact because they worry me that its cancer coming back.   I've had one just under my right side of jaw going up to my ear for a few days now.   I find the weird convoluted stretching exercises if invented make it ease up, so i figure it's a bit of fibrosis developing.    I take vitamin K2 and D3 and calcium together for bone health.  I do resistance exercises for my neck muscles enough to pump them with blood, as well as stretching.  And I use near infared light on the area for 15 mins per day.   I do all this to minimize the chances of developing late onset side affects.    I really don't feel, or like any different then before I had cancer.  Apart from not growing any whiskers under my jaw.   In fact I probably look and feel a bit better because I got my weight down and I'm exercising and eating better.   I had 35 radiation treatments at high dose.   So not everybody turns into a crippled wreck after radiation treatment.   You're having much less......so fear not.   xo   ... View more

It's a horrible situation for sure.  And I can understand you feeling like not doing anything and all of a sudden having so much to do, and you feel like you just can't be bothered.  I had an argument via txt msg with my only son  half way through my treatment and he told me to piss off and he wanted nothing to do with me anymore.  And he hasn't spoke to me since, and even called the cops on me when I tried to drop off a xmas present at his house.  Never even got to see him or speak to him.  I had to suffer through that at the same time as i didn't know whether I was going to live or die.  I still don't know actually.  Cancer has a habit of coming back.    Why does your partner want to split up?   Is it because of the cancer?   If that is the case then none of this is your fault.   I would be telling him if he doesn't want to be with you anymore then go......as in he move out.   I'm single,  and haven't started dating or anything again yet.  But I've been thinking about this stuff.  And I'm thinking......maybe only a fellow cancer survivor can really understand where we are at.....and where we will always be at.   I've already seen how many people gave me a wide birth after I got cancer.  It's like they don't want to be around you in case you become a burden for them or something.  And this looks like what the case is in your situation.  Your partner doesn't want the burden.  He'd probably see it differently if he was a cancer survivor I'd imagine.   Really don't know what other advice to give you except that you have just as much right to stay in that house and him, and since he's the one who wants to split up,  and it's not because of any wrong doing from you......he should leave.   Someone posted a link to a dating site somewhere on here that was for cancer survivors or patients of whatever.   Maybe take a look at that when your feeling better.   Doesn't sound like it would be too hard to find someone more supportive then your ex.   xo ... View more

I had a dream shortly after my chemo and radiation finished.  In the dream they told me that the chemo and radiation had failed and that I would need surgery.   They told what they were going to cut out and said all should be ok.   Then I went straight to surgery.   Well,  it was a dream after all.  Anyway,  I woke up after surgery and there is this doctors face looking at me.  He told me that during surgery they discovered much more cancer then they thought and had to do far more radical procedure.   He said they kept cutting and cutting but kept finding more cancer, so they made the decision to cut my head off.  My head was being kept alive by some machine that pumped oxygenated blood and nutrients into the arteries from my neck.  He said not to worry because I can live indefinitely like this and at some time in the future they might be able to transplant my head onto a donor body from somebody who died of head injury.   I tried to talk but nothing worked, all I could do was look around by moving my eyes.   When I woke up,  just for a minute while still half asleep,  I actually thought I was just a head with no body.  ... View more