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Lani · 05-14-2009, 05:56 AM

as cancer cells. You can observe that effect in some patients as peripheral neuropathy in the legs/feet , sometimes in the arm/feet as I understand it.

It may be possible that it may also also cause some damage to sensation from nerves elsewhere including the gut which might "complain" similarly. As various people get neuropathy in the arms and legs to different degrees (or not at all) and recover from it at different rates (ditto), it is possible that this may be transient.

Remember that nontargetted therapies like chemos act on all quickly dividing cells (those which get replaced often vs. only occasionally) and that among those are those that line the gastrointestinal tract. Theoretically her2 is needed to repair damaged cells in the GI tract so maybe being on herceptin makes it take longer for the GI tract to recover. Don't know if that would manifest as constipation, but from my reading it sounds very rare for breast cancer metastases to cause an intestinal obstruction

That is not to say it is impossible for her complaints to be from the cancer, but there are ways to look for that (eg. PET/CT)

Where in Colorado are you? ie, are you near a teaching hospital with cancer center?

Hope some of this helped!

05-14-2009, 05:56 AM	#12
Lani Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 4,778	taxanes and ixempra are microtubule inhibitors and as such can affect nerves as well as cancer cells. You can observe that effect in some patients as peripheral neuropathy in the legs/feet , sometimes in the arm/feet as I understand it. It may be possible that it may also also cause some damage to sensation from nerves elsewhere including the gut which might "complain" similarly. As various people get neuropathy in the arms and legs to different degrees (or not at all) and recover from it at different rates (ditto), it is possible that this may be transient. Remember that nontargetted therapies like chemos act on all quickly dividing cells (those which get replaced often vs. only occasionally) and that among those are those that line the gastrointestinal tract. Theoretically her2 is needed to repair damaged cells in the GI tract so maybe being on herceptin makes it take longer for the GI tract to recover. Don't know if that would manifest as constipation, but from my reading it sounds very rare for breast cancer metastases to cause an intestinal obstruction That is not to say it is impossible for her complaints to be from the cancer, but there are ways to look for that (eg. PET/CT) Where in Colorado are you? ie, are you near a teaching hospital with cancer center? Hope some of this helped!