I’m going to follow this up with heart failure team on Monday but just in the interim I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this for me ?
I have been diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer and have been told by oncology consultant that chemotherapy is not an option for me as it’s too dangerous for heart failure !
I got to thinking afterwards at home (dangerous I know ,-)) I can’t be the first person to get cancer whilst having heart failure, can I ? Therefore I would like to know are there more heart friendly chemo drugs or are they all a no go for us hearties ?
Many thanks for reading and if you can help on this for me !
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Unlucki
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I’m very sorry to hear about your recent cancer diagnosis and the heart failure.
I can’t help with your query but I really hope you fight the cancer and the doctors can find a solution going forward on how to treat it without it affecting your heart failure.
Aww hun you poor thing 💔. Having heart failure and cancer 😪☹️. I wasn't aware that chemo wasnt an option when you have heart failure. Wish you all the best sending so many hugs xx ❤️
morning 😊 I have to say that I have no knowledge of the treatment that could help you but just to wish you all the love and luck in the world 💕 hang in there I’m sure someone on here has been in the same situation and can offer some input 👍
I really am very sorry to hear of your cancer diagnosis.
My husband also has HF and he had cancer treatment in 2021. What we learnt from his experience is, have your own cardiologist involved in MDT meetings & all decision making. We didn't know about doing this and as a result a cardiologist who had never met my husband decided that they couldn't/wouldn't operate because of my husband's heart condition. His own cardiologist said he could be operated on!!
You should have been given a dedicated 24/7 telephone number to phone if you're poorly & it's out of hours. It works in the same way as 111 except the lines are manned by specialist cancer trained operators. If you need to phone them at all you will be put through to a cancer specialist nurse who will advise you on what action to take. Your own cancer team will also automatically be notified and will contact you during office hours.
When you're diagnosed with cancer you are allocated a specialist nurse & a support team. The support team were absolutely brilliant in every way, even contacting the oncologist for clarification if we were unsure about things.
Finally, we were told the heart will always come first, all your cancer treatment will be geared round how it will affect your heart in the short & long term. I do know of people with HF who've also had chemo but everyone is different & will react differently. I would find out why chemo isn't an option, what the consequences are likely to be if you were to have it & then speak to your own cardiologist. We were told that the treatment would be hard for my husband and unfortunately that has proven to be the case.
I was told on Tuesday that I have throat cancer, pending lot's of tests but the specialist was certain about what the Tests will show.I asked what is the process for ME it could be different to you, and was told kemo and radio as a first option followed by a operation if that doesn't do it with a more aggressive round of kemo and radio therapy, so my advice is get the elbows out and make a fuss.
I have had a quad cabg so that probably qualifies as hart issues if not a fairly serious failure.
I suspect that it's I want a second opinion time, ask your cardiac nurse or contact your cardiologist.
Ask as many medical professionals as you can, don't just take one prognosis,he might be right but you have nothing to lose asking for extra opinions.
Hi Unlucki, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour 18 months ago. Because of the type of tumour, chemo wasn’t an option, but I was offered an operation (which I refused) and radiotherapy (which I had in Jan/Feb this year) with no mention of my heart failure being a problem. My ICD did cause them extra work while having the 5 weeks of daily radiotherapy and all the MRI scans, as they had to turn it off and monitor my heart throughout, but it wasn’t a major problem.
That's interesting Alison and shows how treatment is different for everyone. My husband couldn't be operated on because of his heart condition, he had 4 weeks of daily radiotherapy and there was no mention of turning his ICD off!! I hope your treatment has been successful
Yes, how interesting. Maybe that's where the age of the ICD comes in. They had to put the magnet on it because of the (extremely slight) possibility that the machinery would set off the defibrilator, which wouldn't be good when their pinpoint radiotherapy beam was pointing at my brain!
No that definitely wouldn't be good! Yours is a fairly new ICD isn't it? I only recently found out about this magnet thing!! They keep one in the ambulances in case they're needed, they're not very big are they? For some reason I thought it would be massive!
Mine is 5 years old next month. Here's my magnet, which they gave me 6 months or so after I got the device. The one they used at Royal Marsden was almost identical.... Nope, can't post a pic. It's less than the width of my 4 fingers!
Oh, I remember now you said your ICD is 5 years old. I'm impressed you were given your own magnet 🧲. Think how lethal that could be in the wrong hands! You could be zapping people left, right & centre in the shopping mall without realising it!😳🤣
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