Hi all, My moms Onc wants to start her on a once a month drug called Aredia in addition to the herceptin she already is on. We were curious if anyone here has taken this drug and what thier thoughts on it were and if they had any side effects? My mom also wanted to know , since this drug is to strengthen her vones , if anyone else who took it found it relieved thier bone pain, and if so how many treatments it took to notice a difference?

Hi,

I think this is also known as pamidronate.

A friend of mine took this for a quite a while for bone mets. She tolerated it very well.

Here (in Canada) they now set you up with the infusion and send you home cause it takes about 2 hours. She used to have to sit in the Chemo Day Care all that time! They have a special rig that infuses it and is portable and which you can learn to "disconnect" yourself from on your own. If you don't feel comfortable with that you can still sit in the hospital.

I don't have any personal experience with it and unfortunately she has passed away and I can't call her on your Mother's behalf.