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Tricia,
My understanding is that herceptin is a biological treatment and femara is hormonal based.
There is one school of thought that suggests that using anti-oxidants strengthens the cancer cells making them more vunerable as selective chemo targets. I think that what we'll eventually discover is that certain chemo drugs work in synergy with, or are agonists to, or are neutral to anti-oxident therapies. The other thing is that certain anti-oxidants probably work differently than others.
Very complicated I admit however, I personally would have no problem taking SAMe with herceptin (or femara).
In the case of Xeloda, the week off is recovery time for the body and I feel that the SAMe would give the healthy or recovering liver cells a kick-start from the chemo on-slaught.
My belief is that the body's best defense against cancer is the immune system and even if you have cancer, you still have to work on the body and hopefully prevent future mets. It just makes sense to me that healthy cells won't get cancer! That's the main reason why Linda is on neupogen as well: because we convinced the onc that rather than dose reduction (either milligrams or number of doses)full dose + biological support may work better. This approach is largely untried as far as I know and I guess time will tell!
Al
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