[chrisy]

It is nerve wracking. For me, it was out of the blue - I started having stomach issues and after about a month of tests and stuff, they discovered my liver was chock full of tumors. Oddly, the stomach "symptoms" had gone away on their own by then - I firmly believe it was a warning call for me to get to the doctor.

In my case, nobody expected it and in fact they were in denial that it was the bc. Note, that was way before early stage herceptin and I had no systemic or radiation therapy.

So you can't always tell. And there are not always symptoms early on. I think the best idea is to get screening ct or pet and brain MRI, then if you have persistent symptoms that last more than a couple of weeks, check it out. Because brain mets are often asymptomatic at first, see if you can get regular screening scans, like every couple years, but many doctors don't like to do these without symptoms. The significance of getting the brain MRI is that herceptin does not cross the blood brain barrier so is not protective there.

I think tho, I would reframe your point about headache being a good sign of brain mets, etc. many of the things you describe could he caused by myriad reasons that have nothing to do with cancer.

That's just my non– professional thoughts! The main things you have a medical team you feel,comfortable with.