Herceptin treatments stopped, neutrophil counts dropped to 1.4 this week
 

Greetings!

My neutrophil counts were at 1.4 today, additional herceptin treatments are on hold.
Apparently, herceptin can cause a drop in white blood counts. However, my medical team has not seen this problem before and need to research the affect of drugs used to increase my WBC with herceptin.

I hope that by Tuesday or Wednesday we will have some answers.


This link has information on possible side affects related to herceptin.

http://www.rocheuk.com/ProductDB/Documents/rx/pil/Herceptin_PIL.pdf
<O:p</O:p

Forever His,
Christine

DCIS/IDC/Pagets Disease
Lumpectomy - No clear margins
Mastectomy left breast 6/23/06 – IDC at cauterized margin
Two sentinel Node biopsy - clear
HER/2/Neu +3 over expression
Taxotere/Cytoxan 8/11/06 – 10/13/06
Radiation 10/30 – 12/11
Herceptin 10/27 -

<O:p</O:p

My blood counts still drop and I'm on Herceptin only. Mostly it's the red - hemoglobin. So when it get below 12 then I get a shot of Procrit. I know when I had my A/C treatments both my red and white count dropped. I got shots of Neulasta to bring up my wihte counts.

Hi Kate,

The package leaflet on herceptin does state that it can reduce red blood counts. I am happy that there is a treatment for the decreased red blood count.

I know that there must be a treatment for the WBC, my doctor just needs to find out what it is.

Christine

Christine, There is a couple different injections of meds to increase/raise WBC. One is Neulasta which you usually get a day after chemo. Then there is another one that requires a daily injection for a week. Both work great. (I didn't realize Herceptin alone could cause a drop in wbc?.) I learn something new every day.

The Neulasta can cause bone pain...but at least it gets your wbc back up so you can get back on track with treatments.

Hang in there.

Chelee

Christine,

The daily shot for a week that Chelee is referring to is nupogen. I did that with one round of chemo. Had to give myself the shot everyday in the thigh. Although if you don't want to give yourself the injection you can go to to doctor's office to get it.

I was given neulasta shots when I was on Taxotere/Cytoxan.

My doctor has the pharmacists checking on possible side affects with drugs to treat

my low wbc (neutrophils) and herceptin. I guess at this point I am in a state of neutropenia.


Christine

For those interested in raising their platelet count, please read the 10 posts in the following thread about the possible help in using melatonin (no garantee & check with your healthcare provider before supplementing):

http://www.her2support.org/vbulleti...atonin+platelet
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