oral chemo+off-label drugs+supplements

tanstaafl
tanstaafl Member Posts: 1,313 Member
edited March 2014 in Colorectal Cancer #1

My wife's CEA jumps and climbs from a very stable trendline in the mid 2's anytime there is a disruption among several critical immunochemo components.   So far we have recovered the situation by better chemistry and/or more surgery once, with smaller and fewer imaged lesions and thingies over time. Adding celecoxib, our current last addition among several, appears to be helpful in beating down her CEA rises even after several months of elevation.  Overseas, one can get generic 200 mg celecoxib pills for about 10-25 cents each.   

For about 70% of her illness, she's gone without celecoxib - I am a little afraid of it long term because a friend's wife suddenly stroked out and died the next day while on Vioxx for arthritis after about 5 yrs. Historically Vioxx had more pronounced CV problems. While on celecoxib, and a ton of other things, my wife's coagulation seemed to become unstable, nearing hypercoagulabilty at least once. This seems to happen around when the CEA drops back to baseline CEA, perhaps due to tumor erosion/necrosis or other causes of platelet activation.  Hopefully, we've got the mild blood thinning part right.

Her combined supplements-chemo-celecoxib doses may be high (relative to normal) but it does drive her CEA back down and improve several biomarkers without the usual grief of chemo.  The other constraint is that I feel her treatment is getting more bone marrow limited over time, although a doctor looking at her and her blood work often might not even realize at first that she is on chemo (oral UFT+LV instead of xeloda). 

 

Comments

  • annalexandria
    annalexandria Member Posts: 2,571 Member
    #2
    Glad you're able to help your wife so much, tans,

    it seems like it's almost a full-time job for you!  She's lucky to have you managing her case.  Do you have a science background that enables you to do all of this?

  • thxmiker
    thxmiker Member Posts: 1,278 Member
    #3
    I am happy that you two are

    I am happy that you two are on top of her treatment.  Keep up the good fight.   Diet and attitude are such an important part the fight.

     

    Best always, mike

     

  • tanstaafl
    tanstaafl Member Posts: 1,313 Member
    #4
    annalexandria said:

    Glad you're able to help your wife so much, tans,

    it seems like it's almost a full-time job for you!  She's lucky to have you managing her case.  Do you have a science background that enables you to do all of this?

    yeah

    Yeah, she's always been a full time job.Smile   Her friends frequently say that "lucky" part, too.  I have a broad background that incidentally was very useful.  

  • tanstaafl
    tanstaafl Member Posts: 1,313 Member
    #5
    thxmiker said:

    I am happy that you two are

    I am happy that you two are on top of her treatment.  Keep up the good fight.   Diet and attitude are such an important part the fight.

     

    Best always, mike

     

    thx

    Thanks, Mike. We do aim to evolve our nutrition over time, with allowance for fun stuff.  Keep on keepin' on. Best wishes to you and Laurie. 

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