Eric-
I'm not surprised to hear your onc say this treatment is minor, but I am really surprised to see the side-effects your nurse listed - it is absolutely the H/F syndrome and the diarrhea that are the MAJOR impediments to feeling good on this combo...
I am prone to mouth sores anyway and never had that as a side effect. Moreoever, I was never nauseous or queazy re food at all.
I strongly recommend that you go to the
www.xeloda.com site and print out their treatment diary. Because the meds are oral, you don't see the onc as much, and it really gets hard to remember day to day what you were feeling. The best cream that I found was the udderly smooth udder cream, which my local drugstore carried. I also took the b-6, and as I was on xeloda with or w/out tykerb for over 15 months, immodium ad became my good friend as well.
Please be sure to report the onset of any H/F immediately to your onc, as there may be options to reduce the dosage to manage the symptoms. You'll hear differerent mg of the xeloda people take, but remember it is based on body weight/mass, so unless you know their weight, you're comparing apples and oranges. The original dosage I thinkwas 2500mg/m2, but from the archives here you'll see people have done well on less than that....
I was in the clinical trial that led to approval for tykerb, and I wish your wife only the best on it!!!
Good luck w/ things,