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diabetes and chemotherapy

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worried mum

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My daughter has been diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer and has started chemotherapy -
There seems to be very little information at her hospital regarding how chemo affects diabetes or any helpful hints so does anyone have any advice for diabetics in her situation or can recommend any publications please.
 
Hi worried mum

I am dreadfully sorry for your daughter and you too of course what a worrying time this is for all of you, and I hope and pray for a happy outcome.
More and more people survive cancer nowadays and I hope that you are getting all the help that you need, including benefits, emotional and practical support, are you in contact with cancer help organisations, such as BACUP, etc? I suggest that you email/call around for advice.
I have had cancer myself but was not diabetic at that time, so have no experience of chemotherapy and diabetes together.
I just did a google search for you and there seem to be plenty of sites where you may be able to get some answers,
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie ... arch&meta=

At the time of my illness I had great support from various cancer charities, including http://www.pennybrohncancercare.org/ (this used to be called Bristol Cancer Help Centre) and also
from http://www.McMillan.org.uk - you can even ask for financial support from this organisation, eg grants to help with heating bills, etc, another one is http://www.cancerbackup.org.uk/Resource ... withcancer so do look around, there is plenty of help for people in your daughters situation. Dont be too shy or embarrassed to ask for help and advice, you are entitled to it, and this is definitely a time when you need to lean on people, organisations and anyone offering support and assistance, thats what these charities are there for, even if you dont live locally to where these organisations are based, it doesnt matter.

I hope that this is of some help to you.

Kind regards

Karen
 
many thanks Karen
My pack from the Penny Brohn Cancer care center arrived today and just as you have said, they are most helpful. You have gone straight to the center of my problem as both my daughter and I find it very difficult to ask for help or lean on anyone.
However your prompt and helpful response has shown me that I need to get over that hang up and get out there.This whole thing from first scan to chemo has happened at a whirl wind pace so advice that helps us to get help fast is very useful.

I also want to support my lovely son in law who is devastated by the whole ghastly process but has found strength from somewhere.

I will follow up your searches and also pass on your kind and positive message
best wishes
Annette
worried mum
 
hya,
i would just like to offer u all my best wishes,i cant help on the diabetes front with cancer,but my mum was diagnosed 3 yrs ago with breast cancer so i know what it feels like for a loved one who cares..there was a lady in hosp with the same and type 1 diabetes when mum was and i know she too is in remission,good luck and love to u all xx
 
I'd like to add my best wishes to you and your daughter.
Hana
 
Hi Annette

I know what a devastating effect a cancer diagnosis has on family and friends, I know that both McMillan and Cancerbackup give support to families of cancer patients, someone to talk to, also self-help type groups and telephone helplines. I know my husband was on his knees, he couldnt cope for a while at all, he is a clinical psychologist but found it so hard to talk, and he felt guilty about this, he knew his colleagues everyone would be there for him, but he was too embarrassed to ask for help there, but one day he did ring the McMillan helpline though he didnt tell anyone at the time, he wanted to be anonymous, but he told me later this was where he got his strength from. And sometimes it is good to talk to someone other than family and friends, sometimes we feel we are a burden to the family if we break up too, so we try to hold it all together, but of course something has to give eventually. I suggest that you give your son-in-law this information too, he might just call for support on the spur of the moment, in private, like my husband did.

I think it is very important that your daughter has regular meals to keep this diabetes lark in check, and with side effects of chemo she may not feel like eating at all, so nutritious fruit/veg smoothies can help there, just a few sips at a time, the Brohn Cancer help center will give you some really good advice with this, as I have said dont be shy, this is a time when you really need to draw upon all the help that is available, wherever or whoever it comes from. You need it right now, and then when your daughter is well again you as a family may want to give something back, doesnt have to be money, maybe voluntary work or anything or just raffle tickets at one of their fundraising events, every little counts, but that is in the future, now just please to and take and ask and beg for all you can, including help with bills if appropriate, the idea is that the less additional stress there is for your daughter and family the better you all can cope with concentrating on getting well again. makes sense doesnt it?
Another thing that helped me cope with side effects of chemo was those sea sickness wrist bands and also ginger, even if it is crystallized or boiled sweets, just not too many of course. If your daughter is losing hair there are pretty bandanas and some kind people to show her how to tie them and she will still look like a million dollars, I found I was allergic to wigs, so I had a special hair weave done, if you ever would like details about any of this please do get in touch, send me a PM.
Ask at the hospital if they offer the make over service, http://www.lookgoodfeelbetter.co.uk, these lovely people have really helped a couple of my colleagues and friends, its all positive stuff there and so it should be but that doesnt mean that you and your daughter have to be strong all the time, oh no, you must also let all the emotions out, males as well as females, cry and shout and scream and swear and rant and rave at the unfairness of it all, because thats what it is, totally unfair!!!

Thinking of you

Karen x
 
Hi Annette,
Though i can't offer advice about dealing with cancer alongside diabetes, I can tell you I know of two ladies who got through breast cancer and are now fine. One, my husband's cousin, had a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer but she has just had the 5 year, all-clear news, so I hope that will give you something positive to hang to.
All the best to you and your daughter,
Chocoholic.
 
chemo OK . steroids causing diabetic problems and the joys of "I want a DNA Test"

Hello All
an update on Lisa's chemo and her diabetes. The first bit of good news is that the sea bands have kept the nausea under control hurrah!!! and that although her blood levels were low this week she still managed to have her chemo and is now 1/4 of the way through her treatment.

An oddity is that her BS levels have occasionally gone off the wall for no reason. The docs are mystified but have reduced her steroids as that might be the trigger.

Also between the chemo and diabetes her immune system is so poor that they have told her that for the first 6 days after treatment she needs to go into isolation to avoid contamination. She's so exhausted she sleeps most of the time then anyway. She says that day time telly is rubbish but I have noticed that she is becoming addicted to the Jeremy Kyle show and has been known to shout out " I want a DNA Test" at the most inappropriate times. Ian is turning a spare bedroom into an isolation room so that she doesn't have to go to hospital. What do you recommend she has in it????

We have lots of laughs and keep very positive which is good as one side effect of the chemo that is increased by the Type 1 is that she has developed Chemo Brain ( real condition honest) which results in poor cognitive abilities including poor memory. She has to write herself a script for any conversations particularly phone calls and the house is covered in post its. I keep telling her at least she has an excuse.

I passed on the messages from Totsy, Hana and Chocoholic and Lisa really apreciated them, She was bowled over by your messages Karen and has taken your excellent advice as have I. many thanks
she has put them all in a lovely book a friend made for her.

Lisa has lost her mane of curly hair but now has a blond straight wig and looks fantastic. She has a couple of towelling turbans she wears at home and if anyone comes round she just looks like she's washed her hair. Ian is shaving his head in sympathy and to raise money for Force who have been so helpful and are affiliated to MacMillan.

positive thoughts to all
Annette
 
Hi Annette

I am saddened to hear of your daughter's situation. My sister has been type 1 diabetic for 20 years and was diagnosed with BC back in June. She has had mast with node clearance, followed by 6 sessions of epi then 4 of paclitaxel, but as an accelerated treatement, so every 2 weeks, but without steroids. They will monitor your daughter very carefully as you know, diabetes can affect blood circulation etc so they will pay extra attention to any side affects she may be experiencing - tingling in toes / fingers etc.

The reason she had no steroids was that it seems that they can set the BS levels off the wall as you describe so they wanted my sister to try and go without. I think it did make it a little bit harder as the sickness wasnt so easily controlled but she got thru it and is now on week 2 of 5 weeks of rads.

She is now also started on the hormone therapy, so night sweats have started again. this can be very easily confused with hypos but she tells me you get used to telling the difference.

So all in all, her advice to your daughter is try not to worry - steroids or no steroids, the BS levels will fluctuate - just try and get her to eat when she can and keep checking those levels and maybe just try to remember that any previous insulin regime will inevitably be out of kilter for a while but she will very soon get back to 'normal'.

Lots of love to you both

Jane
 
many thanks Jane

kind thoughts and useful advice . People on this board have been so helpful

Lisa is indeed ravenous nearly all the time and while she is keeping to her usual diabetic control regime she is testing much more often just in case. Luckily the sea bands are still working - she now has a huge collection as some very kind people have been scooping them up when they see them. The one or two ocasions when she's had to take them off she has been very sick. This success with the nausea has meant that the hospital have reduced her steriods to one dose instead of three and she's happy with this. The BS levels do go mad but only for a few days - which she can cope with.

I really sympathise with you and your sister. sounds like she has been through a hard time. I'm sure your support has been vital to her healing and I know how exhauting it can be for the family. I just wonder how people who have no one to help them manage to cope with it all.

Also while having diabetese is rotten Lisa is sure that her 18 years of being a type 1 diabetic have made her stronger, your sister sounds like a fighter as well.

A trivial but real plus is that she looks fantasic in a wig. Lisa has/had very curly dark blond hair so she is now sporting a straight, henna coloured, rock chic wig and is loving it.

Good luck to you both
lots of love and positive thoughts
Annette
 
Hi Annette, Lisa, Ian

So good to get updates, and even better to hear that the seabands are doing their job ok.

It made me giggle when I read about Lisa's rock chick wig, I used to get myself a few wigs, all different colours and styles, but then I developed an allergy that caused eczema on my scalp so it was back to bandanas, however later I found a hairdresser who used a technique by creating a net from real human hair and this was secured to the few strands that I had left on my noddle, and then she weaved real human hair on to the net, marvellous stuff, it lasted for 3 months and if felt as if it was my own hair, so it was a case of when one door closes...another opens - looking back I have learnt so much from that time and not all has been negative, some really good things have come from me having cancer, one day Lisa will look back and will agree with me.
The reason that I giggled about the wig was, I was so excited with one of my new wigs, and i was beginning to feel better too, so decided to take the dog out for a walk in the park, I threw him sticks, and then saw another bigger stick so bent down under the bush to pick it up, my wig got caught in the branches above me and lifted off right in front of a bloke who was just passing by at this very moment, hahahaha, you ought to have seen his face, I will never ever forget it, I just grabbed my wig back and plonked it on top of my head again and smiled, oh but it still makes me laugh just thinking about his shocked face!

I hope Lisa is eating really good, healthy food to help boost her immune system, this will also help her avoid depression, esp at this time of year as well what with dark, grey, gloomy days.

Still thinking of you all, still shooting you comforting, healing vibes.

Love

Karen x
 
Hi Annette

How is Lisa doing ? Was chatting to my sister Anna today about her the other day, and she remembers so vividly that fear of not only trying to deal with the cancer but that there is so little data available on treatment of cancer alongside insulin dependancy - you need to eat regularky but you are nauseous or cant cant stand the smell of something.

So I thought would ask how Lisa is getting on. Tip from Anna - ask Lisa to try to arrange a meeting with oncologist and her diabetic specialist - all together. It may really help knowing they all aware of symptoms, implications and how to get round it - all singing off the same hymn sheet if you like.

Send her my love - and hugs to you too.

Jane x
 
Hello All
Thanks for the tip Jane. The diabetic clinic has taken a lead and set up the meetings you describe - all very useful stuff.
Also thanks for your continuing support Karen.

here's an update on Lisa's progress and there are some bits of good news.

we are six weeks into chemo and she had her third treatment this week. It was a worrying time as both she and I were convinced that because she had been feeling so weak for the past 10 days her blood results would be too low, also they had ordered an ECG to monitor her heart problems. However when it came to getting the results on Thursday her ECG results were described as "fantastic!" and although her white cell count had halved she was still OK for treatment.

The second bit of good news was that when the tumour was measured externally it appeared to have shrunk by 17% it's gone from 6 cm to 5 cm after two treatments. She has to have a scan next week to see exactly what has happened but it is all positive so far.

The sea bands have kept the nausea under control hurrah!!! and she is keeping the diabetes under control as well.

while waiting to see the oncologist ( running 2 hours late and completely over stretched.) we sat in the packed waiting room which was a salutary experience indeed. There were people at all different stages of treatment. We realised that In the population at large Lisa is one of those unfortunate ones who has cancer and diabetes but in the "Cancer Club" , as she calls it, she's one of the lucky ones .

Between the chemo and diabetes her immune system is so poor this time that she's going to really take it easy before her next treatment. Both of us heard the same thing last time she had chemo which was that for the first 6 days after treatment she needs to go into isolation to avoid contamination. So she did this even though she was feeling reasonable. The following week we had a play week when we went Christmas shopping . Also Lisa went out on her own to meet friends in town which was a very anxious time for me, a bit like sending her to her first day at school. In spite of a few panic attacks she managed it well and has made it a regular date now.

However she dropped like a stone and was poorly from then onwards.

We queried this with another oncologist who told us that it was days 7 to 14 which were her most vulnerable times and that she should keep herself to herself during that period - doh -
In addition to her rock chic wig Lisa now has a platignum white straight wig and seems to be going down the EMo ( or is it CHEMO) route.

Ian is shaving his head today to raise money for Force affiliated to MacMillan. If you are interested in seeing the results you can look on the Just Giving web site next week where his page is :

http://www.justgiving.com/ianjohnson6

We've had some great advice from people like you who have had experience of cancer and diabetes. I appreciate how difficult this must be for you as it must take you back to a bad time in your lives - how generous to do that for my girl.

Hope you are OK and looking forward to Christmas - yes only 6 weeks away!!!!

Many thanks and positive thoughts to you all
love
Annette
 
hya annette,
glad to hear things are as good as can be expected,my thoughts are with you and your daughter,
hugs amanda :D
 
Hi Annette

Good to hear an update and to hear that things seem to be progressing well. Thet umour shrinkage is excellent news.

It sounds as if they are treating your daughter the same as my sister, chemo every 2 weeks. As I understand it, this is because the immune system is lowered with anyone during chemo but even harder for a diabetic to fight thru - my sister's dentist wouldnt even to a regular hygeine clean once she had started chemo as it releases bacteria !

Do try and look after yourself too - it is harrowing trying to find the right way to support a loved one through this - can you remember the turmoil when your daughter was diagnosed as diabetic? And now you have this to deal with as well.

I attach a link below to a fantastic forum for BC sufferers - there may be some very useful tips on there for your daughter, and there is a section for friends, family etc where lots of us go on to get a bit of a boost - it is sometimes good to be able to vent feelings with people who can more readily understand what you are going through.

http://www.breastcancercare.org.uk/bcc-forum/50/

Treating cancer in a diabetic is actually no different from treating a non - diabetic - you get the same medicines to kill of those blessed nasty cells, it is just that they will be more aware of her immune system etc - so please please do try and take comfort from the good news that the tumour is reducing. It may seem like a long haul but my sister now starts week 3 of her 5 weeks of radiotherapy and then she is finished !! Her hair has even started growing back - so we call her stubbly now ! Yet just a few short months ago we thought it was the end of the world.

Just a point for info about the white blood cell count - this is again very very normal in all cancer patients - the chemo kills off all cells, good and bad, including those important white ones. As part of your daugters regeime, she will be given either a mix as part of her chemo drip, or an injection after chemo or maybe to do herself at home which is a white blood cell booster. So .... at chemo stage they will test and lets say your daughters white count is 14, after the booster it will shoot up within a day or 2 to anywhere between 40 and 70 !! In a healthy person this is far too high and would be worrying - but this is what the oncologist wants as of course the chemo will get rid of a lot of those over the period until the next chemo session.

I apologise if I am giving you info that you already know, but my job to help my sister was to gather the information, what her chemo was, how it is made, how it works etc and I cant quite get out of the habit of explaining to everyone.

An important note - Anna (my sister) has had a racing heart, to the point where she had to go to A & E. They did a blood test and were very worried about her white blood cell count being so high but ofcourse she had just had her booster. They were going to give her drugs to bring the white cell level down ! Luckily Anna shoutred long and hard and she made them call her oncology dept who told them to leave Anna's cell count alone. btw the racing heart was just a chemo symptom and has now stopped.

The lesson we learned here was that A & E are not trained to understand the intricacies of cancer treatment, especially when combined with diabetes, so if you have any worries about your daughters immediate health, shout loudly about the chemo and give them your daughter's specialists name.

Lots of love to you both - and do stay in touch and let us know how she is getting on. Feel free to pm me if you feel want a more personal chat -

Jane xx
 
hi there
I have some GOOD NEWS.

Thanks for all your kind thoughts. Lisa had some great news this week - when she started her treatment just 8 weeks ago she was looking at chemo for 6 months followed by a mastectomy , more cancer cells in the other breast and cancer cells in the passages leading to her lymph glands. She's had three treatments out of the 8 and has now had another scan which showed that the tumour has reduced by a massive 50%, the cancer cells in her other breast have cleared as have the cells in her lymph system. It now looks like as long as things progress in the same way there will be no mastectomy at the end of her chemo - what a boost to our spirits.

The doctors thought it was remarkable progress and asked what she was doing right , she told them about her diet regime and her rest/relaxation regime plus the sea bands and also that a large number of people were sending out positive thoughts and support for her.

At last we're looking forward to the future ( cautiously though) and she's even planning for Christmas.

Of course nothing is ever completely plain sailing is it, Lisa has started to feel a little queasy on a regular basis which is a little disapionting but she's coping.

What she does find curious is that she is starving hungry all the time - have any of you come across this as side effect of chemo/diabetes ?

I hope all of you and your loved ones are doing well too

Onwards and upwards
love
Annette
 
Hya Annette and Lisa,
That is absolutely brilliant news,you are both in my thoughts and fingers crossed for u in the future,keep us informed
love,amanda xx
 
Hi Annette

Great news - what an excellent early xmas pressie - do take care and will keep sending out those healin thoughts.

Chocfish - Anna had the same - said it was like the pregnancy cravings - so all her early thoughts on eationg only organic and non dairy etc went out of the window when she got her first craving lol.

Anna has just finished her 25 sessions of raiotherapy, and met with her oncologist - they are all really happy with her and amazed at the way she coped with the op, chemo etc being type 1 - he doesnt need to see her now for a month - so early xmas pressie for her too.

Love to all

Jane
 
really pleased to hear about Anna, Jane. I am sure having your support has been a factor in her progress.

Merry Christmas to you both
love
Annette
 
Hello everyone

Thank you so much for your kind messages and interest.

Things are progressing at a slow pace here and I’m afraid after all these weeks of fighting and staying positive we’ve hit a brick wall. I’m not sure what it is but a week or so after the euphoria of the good news from the scan Lisa’s resolve dropped and she’s feeling pretty low at the moment.

I think it may be because the reality of the next long months of treatment has hit her and also the time of year can be pretty hard going for many people.

So, following Karen’s advice, I will take all the help I can get. It’s Lisa’s birthday on New Years Day and I want to make her a card with as many positive and uplifting messages in it as possible. I’m running out of things to say but I am sure that there are many of you who are able to pass on to Lisa the thoughts that have inspired you at times of trouble.

I will print them out and add them to her card so that she can take them out and read them when she is feeling low.

Meanwhile a huge hug to the powerful circle of friendship on this forum

Love from
Annette
 
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