HER2 Support Group Forums - View Single Post - Vision Problems

Tankweti · 05-28-2015, 01:50 PM

I have been having blurred vision and either very dry eyes or a sudden outpouring of lacrimation. I asked my oncologist about it (I was on Taxol +Herceptin weekly x 12 weeks) for early stage, node negative breast cancer. He said I may need new glasses as it has been a while. I am also now finding that I cant really see small print, even with my bifocals and this happened suddenly. So I called a local ophthalmologist's office and made an appointment. Meanwhile, here is an article for everyone to chew on. It turns out that most chemotherapy can cause adverse effects on the eye, some of them severe. At the end of the article I mentioned, it said that doctors dont tell us this because they "give priority to other life threatening conditions" engendered by chemo and I suppose the cancer itself. WHAATT!! I would say that while blindness is not life threatening it surely can change your quality of life which you are trying to protect during chemo as well as you can in the hopes you will be able to get back to your life before chemo (as closely as possible anyway).

I will try to attach the article but just in case, I will give you all the name of it:

Ocular Adverse Effects of Anti-Cancer Chemotherapy coauthored by Parul Singh in 2012. Search term I used was Taxol Optic Nerve.

Unfortunately didnt work but you should be able to find it if you type in the above article name.

05-28-2015, 01:50 PM	#10
Tankweti Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 9	Re: Vision Problems - Side Affect of Herceptin??? I have been having blurred vision and either very dry eyes or a sudden outpouring of lacrimation. I asked my oncologist about it (I was on Taxol +Herceptin weekly x 12 weeks) for early stage, node negative breast cancer. He said I may need new glasses as it has been a while. I am also now finding that I cant really see small print, even with my bifocals and this happened suddenly. So I called a local ophthalmologist's office and made an appointment. Meanwhile, here is an article for everyone to chew on. It turns out that most chemotherapy can cause adverse effects on the eye, some of them severe. At the end of the article I mentioned, it said that doctors dont tell us this because they "give priority to other life threatening conditions" engendered by chemo and I suppose the cancer itself. WHAATT!! I would say that while blindness is not life threatening it surely can change your quality of life which you are trying to protect during chemo as well as you can in the hopes you will be able to get back to your life before chemo (as closely as possible anyway). I will try to attach the article but just in case, I will give you all the name of it: Ocular Adverse Effects of Anti-Cancer Chemotherapy coauthored by Parul Singh in 2012. Search term I used was Taxol Optic Nerve. Unfortunately didnt work but you should be able to find it if you type in the above article name.