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Yes, the fever is quite common..mine usually goes up to about 101.5 and sometimes lasts for 14 hours till it breaks..usually in the sweats one woman mentioned. I have always looked upon this as a good thing. Raising the body temperature kills anything that might be lurking and is a terrific work out for your immune system. That is why I NEVER recommend that the pre-meds be taken as they dampen this beneficial/healing effect. The Benadryl dampens the immune response and the Tylenol minimalizes the fever. Although this is great from a managing symptoms point of view..isn't what we REALLY want is to KILL the cancer cells???...remember, the herceptin alone only basically "tags" over -expressing her-2 cells for destruction...it is actually YOUR OWN IMMUNE SYSTEM THAT has to go in there and do the dirty work to clean up the tumor debris.
NO, HERCEPTIN is not a more typical "chemo" .. it is an immuno therapy...let's not lose sight of that...Therefore, doing all your can to maintain a healthy diet and get adequate rest is very good combined with the Herceptin...Also, though it is tempting, don't play HERO...your body is undergoing such a surge in your immune response that the best thing of all is to DRINK plenty of fluids as Sandy so rightly suggests and to SLEEP it off...and rest up the next day, too, if you can. Hmmm...should I add this?? I have taken Herceptin for over 6 years...and every infusion is more or less a repeat of the other with one caviat...the higher my tumor burden, the higher the fever and the greater the flu bone-like pain...the lower my markers...signifying...we hope a lighter tumor burden, the less fever, less pain. Fever is a good sign. One woman I work with just returned to Herceptin today after being off everything for a year and a half...things progressed...as they will if left unattended to the point where she was told by the oncologist (who had not all this time NOTICED she was her-2+++ ER-PR-) that there was no hope..she was planning to go off to the country to die in peace...then, the onc happened to "NOTICE" the her-2 element and put her on a high re-loading dose earlier today (8mg/kg I THINK>>)....by 5:30pm, her distraught husband was calling me after hours worried to death with his wife's horrible fever over 101.5...I was so happy, you know, as I KNEW she had got to the Herceptin just in the nick of time and it was working. That is the really cool thing with Herceptin...if you are really in a bad shape, or even just medium bad, you will know when it hits. If you take it without pre-meds and don't notice too much...also good news PROVIDED you are her-2 +++, as it usually means things are under CONTROL...smile. If you don't chart them yet, find a way to get your tumor markers taken regularly...that way, neither you nor your onc will have to "guess." I know you feel bad tonight, but by Monday, you will feel like your entire cancer experience was a terrible flu that somehow you "got over". You should have more energy and start feeling really good soon. Best of luck, Gina
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