CancerCompass message board discussion started by Denise1156 on 4/6/2008 http://www.cancercompass.com/message-board/message/all,22753,0.htm Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://backend.userland.com/rss RSS.NET: http://www.rssdotnet.com/  I had written previosly about my brother in law being treated with erbitux. I guess they do use it on its own for recurring(sp?) cancer in head and neck cancer. He didnt get the rash until the second treatment. He has one more to go and then a scan to see where he's at. I pray this is working since its the last chance. He has been fighting this nasophyrangeal cancer for 7 years.(It came back twice) By the way I read somewhere that a rash could mean that the chemo is working. If anyone has any other info or has gone through this or had someone they knew gone through the erbitux chemo treatment.on its own please let me know.  Thanks and God Bless  Denise Denise1156 Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT erbitux is a wonderful drug it saved my life, the drug came out i think in 2005, just in time for me. i had 4 of those and 4. taxotere. this drug strips the protein off the cancer cell. and then the cemo goes thru the blood, the eurbitux makes the cemo work better. i also had 32 head and neck rad. treatments,along with that,it makes those treatments work beeter too. then my doc followed that up with avistan for 12 month,one shot a month and now i am on tarceva. quite a cocktail but i am cancer free and feel wonderful..all of these drugs do a number on the body, i had a naturaopath from the cancer hospital, she is worth her weigh in gold as the wonderful docs and nurses. dr said that the worse the rash the better the meds work. must be so. good luck  god bless jusykitty Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT my S.O.'s doctors and nurses were very excited about the rash...they said it was a good sign! meesh Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT   Thank you justkitty and thank you Meeesh. I thought that rash was a good sign. He just got it on the second treatment. Also I think I mentioned that he was having the Erbitux alone without any other chemo.(this is a recurrence of the original cancer) The cisplatin was not good on his kidneys and the carboplatin was not working.  This week is the last erbitux treatment and then a scan. I'll report back with the"good" news. Tthanks again I really appreciate your repsonses they make me feel a whole lot better. :) Denise  Denise1156 Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT My husband will be starting his first erbitux treatment tomorrow before radiation starts on the 14th.  He will also be doing erbitux only, this is not in addition to another drug. The many doctors  at first could not agree whether to do erbitux or cisplatin though I am thinking we should be lucky they finally settled on the first of the two. What I am hoping is that the side effects really aren't as bad as they are for the cisplatin because as he gets his first dose tomorrow, he is having surgery on Thursday to get the feeding tube and I am wondering if that will be alot for his first week or is that just a prelude of whats to come anyways.  g8orgal79 Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT  On 4/8/2008 g8orgal79 wrote:My husband will be starting his first erbitux treatment tomorrow before radiation starts on the 14th.  He will also be doing erbitux only, this is not in addition to another drug. The many doctors  at first could not agree whether to do erbitux or cisplatin though I am thinking we should be lucky they finally settled on the first of the two. What I am hoping is that the side effects really aren't as bad as they are for the cisplatin because as he gets his first dose tomorrow, he is having surgery on Thursday to get the feeding tube and I am wondering if that will be alot for his first week or is that just a prelude of whats to come anyways. I can only tell you from my brother in law's experience with the erbitux. He didnt have any side effects except being very tired the first time. The second dose was when his rash started to appear. The side effects from erbitux are nothing like the side effects from cisplatin. I believe erbitux is a targeted therapy and is actually an antibody. The only thing is the rash which most people get. But I hear that the rash is also a good sign that the erbitux is working. Of course there have been people who have no rash and it still works. I think he will be better off with the feeding tube because if it gets difficult to eat he will keep up his body weight and strength as long as he can use the tube. He may not need it but its good to have it just in case he does have a problem with food. After he is done with the chemo and Radiation they can easily remove it. My husband is now going into his 5th year of being cancer free from nasophyrangeal cancer. I know what you are going through. Try to stay strong and take care of yourself especially. God Bless you both and keep everyone here informed. These people are wonderful and will support you as much as they can.  Denise Denise1156 Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT I had Erbitux and Cisplatin.  I got the rash after the first dose.  It was a larger does than normal.  He called it a loading does.  After a couple of weeks the ends of my fingers split open.  I had bandages on literally all my fingers.  Also, the bottoms of my feet hurt.  It was painful to walk.  My doctor said both were normal.BTW, the blisters on the rash will burst at the slightest touch.  Look forward to getting blood on everything :)  ThreePutt Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT  On 4/9/2008 ThreePutt wrote:I had Erbitux and Cisplatin.  I got the rash after the first dose.  It was a larger does than normal.  He called it a loading does.  After a couple of weeks the ends of my fingers split open.  I had bandages on literally all my fingers.  Also, the bottoms of my feet hurt.  It was painful to walk.  My doctor said both were normal.BTW, the blisters on the rash will burst at the slightest touch.  Look forward to getting blood on everything :)  How are you doing now? You are a survivor which means to me that you got through this horrendous treatment and survived. God Bless you.  Denise Denise1156 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT I have a question; how long after the treatment did you get the rash? Hubby made it through his loading dose today, and so far so good.  He seems to be a little tired but thats it so far!  g8orgal79 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT  I'm going great! (knock wood)  Almost like it never happened.Thanks,Tom On 4/9/2008 Denise1156 wrote: On 4/9/2008 ThreePutt wrote:I had Erbitux and Cisplatin.  I got the rash after the first dose.  It was a larger does than normal.  He called it a loading does.  After a couple of weeks the ends of my fingers split open.  I had bandages on literally all my fingers.  Also, the bottoms of my feet hurt.  It was painful to walk.  My doctor said both were normal.BTW, the blisters on the rash will burst at the slightest touch.  Look forward to getting blood on everything :)  How are you doing now? You are a survivor which means to me that you got through this horrendous treatment and survived. God Bless you.  Denise  ThreePutt Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT looking back i think my s.o. had his first dose on a friday and woke up with the rash the following tuesday.  at first it was just his chest and back and over the next few days crept up to his head.  over time he also suffered from cracked and very sensitive fingers.  one helpful suggestion we got from a nurse was to use head and shoulders dandruff shampoo as a body wash...that seems to help a lot.  meesh Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT My thumb and index fingers still split open (18 months post).  Not as often and they don't bleed as much, but still painful. ThreePutt Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT My Dad is getting Erbitux for Stage IV Colon Cancer.  He had his 2nd dose yesterday and just started noticing a little rash on his face last night.  FYI- His Dr. told us Erbitux (Centuximab) is the Martha Stewart Drug. (The one she went to prison for because she received an inside tip that Centuximab would be the next big thing on the medical market!) I hope everyone is right and this Erbitux (Centuximab) is as good as you say it is! My Dad and my family can use all the help we can get right now. Dina DinaZ Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT  On 4/10/2008 ThreePutt wrote:My thumb and index fingers still split open (18 months post).  Not as often and they don't bleed as much, but still painful.I'm so sorry about that but I'm happy you are alive and in remission. Stay healthy and God bless you  Denise Denise1156 Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT Don't fear Erbitux! I had a total of 7 treatments with it for nasopharyngeal cancer, once a week, along with 33 rads. It caused a rash on my face (not too horrible) and very dry skin after the second dose, but otherwise no problems. I was lucky that the Drs. decided not to try other chemo along with it. It's not really a chemotherapy- type drug at all, it just prepares the cancer cells and makes them more receptive to radiation, and at this point there are no visible cells left but am awaiting a PET scan.    Best wishes,  Becky     wordweasel Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT Thank You so much!  What did you use to help with the rash?  Any specific product? DinaZ Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT I was given a small tube of Biafine for the rash but honestly, it didn't help all that much. As I said, mine wasn't all that bad but some people get it worse than others, and it went away almost literally overnight as soon as my last treatment ended. As other posters have said, a rash is a good sign that it's working! All the best, Becky  wordweasel Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT It's nice to see some encouraging things about the erbitux.  It's funny my husband's doctors went back and forth; The chemo doctor says first erbitux; the the radiation oncologist and ENT say no you need cisplatin. The next week the chemo doctor again says yes we are back to erbitux, a study just hours ago came out, etc. etc. etc.  I felt the first ray of light since we found out about this thing back on 3/25. He got his feeding tube last Thursday, which is finally starting to feel better, he has his second dose or erbitux tomorrow and he had his first of 42 radiation treatments (with the amifostine shot) this afternoon. My question is this though, when he came back from the rad treatment his lump looked bigger to me.  I don't know if I was completely imagining this or does this happen at all? It sounds silly typing this out now, but I am just curious. g8orgal79 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT  On 4/15/2008 wordweasel wrote:Don't fear Erbitux! I had a total of 7 treatments with it for nasopharyngeal cancer, once a week, along with 33 rads. It caused a rash on my face (not too horrible) and very dry skin after the second dose, but otherwise no problems. I was lucky that the Drs. decided not to try other chemo along with it. It's not really a chemotherapy- type drug at all, it just prepares the cancer cells and makes them more receptive to radiation, and at this point there are no visible cells left but am awaiting a PET scan.    Best wishes,  Becky     Hi Becky  Well your post kind of worries me. My brother in law just finished with erbitux. He will get a scan Monday. the only thing is he has been fighting his nasphyarngeal cancer for 7 years. He's had his total allotment of Radiation and can have no more. He couldn't take the cisplatin or the carboplatin this last time, so they put him on Erbitux. He did get a rash. The only thing is it is being used without any radiation or anything else. Reading your post now I have a fear it won't work because if it prepares the cells for radiation what happens if there is no radiation to follow? Also I was reading up on cyberknife therapy and talked to a few people about it.. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with that? Good Luck and God Bless the both of you. Thanks  Denise  Denise1156 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT