Re: Side effects/Torisel

My fiance will be starting Torisel for metastic Renal Cell carcinoma stage 4 on Monday...I just wanted to know when the side effects  start, do they start the first week of treatment ??  Just wondering ??

Rebba

On 1/2/2009 Rebba53 wrote:

My fiance will be starting Torisel for metastic Renal Cell carcinoma stage 4 on Monday...I just wanted to know when the side effects  start, do they start the first week of treatment ??  Just wondering ??

Rebba

Hello,

 My husband started on Torisel in April 08. I can't remember exact timelines of side effects but the main one is fatigue but that did not start right away. Somewhere around 3rd month he had to be put on medicine to control blood sugar and about 5th month he had to be put on Liptor for cholestrol. He has had some stomach issues mainly gas. He is also having tenderness in feet and hands. However, now his feet is mainly feel numb. Compared to Sutent, these side effects have been mild. His tumors in his lungs have stayed the same and one had even shrunk during one visit. However, we found out Fri. that his brain tumor had grown. He is going to have the Gamma Knife procedure done soon.

Good luck to your fiance and keep your head up. We have been fighting this for 3 years and new treatments are coming out every year.

Kim Parker

I have been on weekly Torisel Chemo for RCC m for over a years. Main side effect has been taste bud alteration, so foods don't taste right. Sometimes diarehia.

It is keeping me aline and has stabilized many lung tumors. Several others have been radiated. I am very pleased.

Ron 76 years

I had a nephrectomy of my left kidney back in 1991. Currently, I am stage IV RCC with mets to the liver and adrenal gland. 

I have just started my 7th month of Torisel. Everyone is somewhat unique when it comes to chemo meds side effects but I can tell you that side effects for me have been minimal. Loss of appetite, some effect on taste buds and some fatigue. Probably the bigest side effect has been on blood chemistry. Whereas I have never had a cholestorol problem in my life (I'm 66 years old)... it shot way up so that I am now on cholestorol meds. Also items such as platlets, white blood count, hemoglobin have all been negatively effected and are monitored with weekly blood tests.

The totality of side effects took about a month to set in fully. Previously, I had been on Sutent and Nexavar and the side effects of those meds were far worse.

Sutent and Nexavar worked for a while in stabilizing the cancer until it built up a resistance to those meds. Torisel has held it in check so far.

 Good luck with your Torisel treatment.

Wow you have been fighting this disease a very long time. Your story is very encouraging. My husband was dx in 2005. He currently has tumors on the brain and lung. Torisel seems to be working on the lung but not the brain.

I hope you keep doing well.

Kim

On 1/5/2009 Kim p wrote:

 

On 1/2/2009 Rebba53 wrote:

My fiance will be starting Torisel for metastic Renal Cell carcinoma stage 4 on Monday...I just wanted to know when the side effects  start, do they start the first week of treatment ??  Just wondering ??

Rebba

Hello,

 My husband started on Torisel in April 08. I can't remember exact timelines of side effects but the main one is fatigue but that did not start right away. Somewhere around 3rd month he had to be put on medicine to control blood sugar and about 5th month he had to be put on Liptor for cholestrol. He has had some stomach issues mainly gas. He is also having tenderness in feet and hands. However, now his feet is mainly feel numb. Compared to Sutent, these side effects have been mild. His tumors in his lungs have stayed the same and one had even shrunk during one visit. However, we found out Fri. that his brain tumor had grown. He is going to have the Gamma Knife procedure done soon.

Good luck to your fiance and keep your head up. We have been fighting this for 3 years and new treatments are coming out every year.

Kim Parker

Thank you Kim for responding to my message, my fiance had his first treatment and he did very well, and i'm hopeing that he stays this way, all he wants is to feel good, once a side effects become trouble some, he won't continue the treatment with any of the rcc drugs, he's just giving this a trial run...This has been very hard on me, but i can see that whatever time that he has, he wants quality of life, i have to let him make his own decision on this, so i am praying that he's one of the ones that gets hardly any side effects, i'm sure fatique he can handle, it's the mouth sores that he afraid of..Thanks for reading Kim, you also keep your head up. 3 years is a long time for the both of you to be going thru this and you are so right, they are coming out with better drugs,...I saw a quick video on a new drug that is in a 1st or 2nd phase of trial that is a 90% close to a cure for mrcc, so who knows what new drugs will be coming out next...

Rebba