Oral chemo drugs

Hi @arpie and @eddiek, Arpie sorry to hear of you hubby's recent passing. I hope you are doing OK. I had forgotten that I did get peeling feet on capacitabine. They were also very inflamed and sometimes I had trouble walking. I still have the peeling even though I have been on several other treatments since. However, the inflammation didn't continue - my feet just look like I don't look after them!

So sorry Arpie to hear of your husband's passing x Thank you for your further info.

Thank you June1952 also.  Not sure how to use this site yet, i.e. how to respond to individual messages :)

All I can say is that the chemical companies who make these drugs must know the side-effects and just have to include a substance to prevent or at least minimise all these side-effects.
Thinking of you @eddiek at this crappy time.

Hopefully @eddiek they'll have a better handle on the chemo from 9 years ago - when they used to throw the kitchen sink at it .... There are SO many more choices now & also the chance of immunotherapy as well - has this been mentioned by your Onc?  Or Genome testing?  

Hubby's feet looked a lot worse than they felt - they weren't particularly sore most of the time, tho he had one incidence of that.  (It looked sort of like really bad eczema ...)  It doesn't happen to everyone tho, as with Lisa1407 - so that is the unknown factor.  Fingers crossed that yours doesn't have that side effect (or any of them.) xx   Sadly, hubby passed away recently. xx

Thankyou Arpie.  Why is it that all these drugs have such terrible side effects.  Like really bad - I mean peeling feet, wow, so sorry.  I know everyone says well how lucky are we to have these options to extend our lives, but geez wizz when will those side effects be lessened. x Just come home from hospital after bilateral masectomy and right axilla clearance, left axilla already cleared 9 years ago.  Chemo is already front and centre of my mind and anxiety levels heightening at the thought of it all over again.  Yay.  Wish you and your hubby well. kind regards Kylie

I am sorry to read of your recurrence, @eddiek .... absolutely, as @Blossom1961 says, some hospitals are much better than others at inserting portacaths - our local hospital wasn't 'known for it' - so we went to Port Mac for my husband's portacath and our Onc was most impressed with how good a job the surgeon did there - and I bet will send more patients there from now on.

Hubby had Capecitabine for most of last year - and it caused major peeling of his feet ..... 

take care & all the best xx

Hi @eddiek, There are not too many oral chemotherapies. Two that come to mind are Afinitor and Capecitabine. Afinitor is really a targeted therapy (and not really a chemotherapy per se) used if you have the AKT-1 mutation, whereas capecitabine is a general oral chemotherapy. Both are relatively easy to tolerate. I have had both over the 6 years since my original diagnosis of hormone positive bc. Good luck xxx

Thankyou x much love to you x

This is probably a question best asked to your Onco as every situation is different and only they can advise. I had a horrible experience with my portacath first time around which led to trauma issues. This time I used a different hospital to insert the port and they were fantastic. I am on an 'unlimited lifetime' three weekly supply of chemo so the Port was necessary this time around. Hopefully your Onco can provide what your prefer.