Has anyone experienced a golf ball size painful lump from your Faslodex shots?
I’ve been on the monthly shots for the past year and the one a few weeks ago resulted in a painful deep lump on my left side. I try massaging it but it hurts a lot.
Please let me know if you’ve experienced this and what you did to remedy it.
I certainly don’t want another shot in the same place in a few weeks.
Thank you,
Yes when I was having faslodex injections it happened a couple of times. Found prevention was better than cure! Warm the injection to body temperature, make sure your muscles are relaxed, get the nurse to inject slowly, massage the injection area well after the shot and if you can apply some heat - I used the heated car seat on the way home!
Mine used to develop exactly where my camera bumped on my hip!
Thank you Julie. The strange thing is that I already employ all the techniques you mention & I never had a problem before. It was a new nurse so I wonder if she went too fast. It hurt the whole time while she did the injection too. I’ll put a big black X on it so they don’t go near it next time 😖.
The times it happened with me were times when I felt the nurse was in a rush. Took almost 4 weeks for the lumps to go down! I found the injections uncomfortable but I don't think they should hurt if they are being done properly 😐
I found I got those same results with different nurses. There is only one nurse who even measures down to a correct spot. She says she is old school and goes slow. She takes her time. She is the best and I never have a problem.
She wasn't available this week and it was terrible.
What a great idea on the heated car seat!!
Hi,
I’m sorry to hear about the lump. If it doesn’t go away soon I would mention it to your doctor, as you don’t want that to happen again.
I have monthly zoladex injections. I was alarmed one time when I felt two small lumps on either side of my abdomen where my ovaries are located. That’s where I get the injections (the doctor alternates the side). I was scared in case I had developed stomach tumours. I think it’s a good idea to move the injection site around to stop this from happening. I hope the lump goes away soon.
Sophie
There's an art to the injection that's for sure. It also helps if they numb the area first.
This past time she numbed it too much and I have 2 huge blisters at injection site which were so painful. I’ve never before experienced this but too much of that spray isn’t good. And yes there is an art to the injections for sure.
Hi hopenowandtomorrow,
Thanks for bringing up a great question!
I've sort of come to accept the two walnuts/ping pong balls/etc. in my "butt cheeks" as simply the "price" of getting Faslodex.
Like you, I sort of cringe at the thought of a new injection into that site. I never realized that these might be temporary and can be managed/avoided, so I'm grateful for that info from this site.
I'll mention that one of the nurses at my hospital injects into my upper hip, in the back, not the typical place. Through research I learned that this is a newer technique that might be better. So, where I go for the injections, I sort of end up with a mixed bag of injection techniques/locations.
I just felt around (!) for the walnuts/ping pong balls, and they're gone! So I guess they are temporary....
Anyway, it's weird/disconcerting, for sure, but I think it's nothing to be too worried about.. 
Take care,
Lynn
Was just thinking about this subject this week! Did you have the same person give yours as usual or someone different?
I just had my injections on Tuesday. Unfortunately in 6 months of getting them, four different nurses have given them. Two do it the same way, slow and in about the same place. There has never been a problem, not even a little soreness the next day. The other two, eye roll! One said she has a different muscle she likes to put it in. I let her do the first one that way and felt a pain down my leg. I made her do the second one in the normal place. On the first leg, the pain lasted for the whole month before it went away. The other leg was fine. This week the nurse said she liked to inject, massage, inject, massage. There was pain when she was injecting because I think she was injecting faster before she massaged. Until yesterday I felt like someone had punched me in both places. It has worn off now.
So for me, I think the main difference is in where and how someone gives the shot. From now on I’m going to tell anyone that wants to do it differently than the normal way, that they have to do it by the book or I’ll wait for another nurse to be free. There are always 4-5 nurses in our treatment clinic.
I was worried about the one shot that hurt for a month but it did go away. I would definitely talk to your clinic about your reaction. I told my oncologist about the one that hurt for a month. He looked up the nurse that did it and said she has had other complaints.
I hope your lumps go away. I don’t have any good suggestions except for maybe continuing to put heat on the sites to get the lumps to absorb.
Elaine
Have you tried applying warm compress? It might help. I used to use cold compress but because Faslodex is thick and “oily” the lump stayed. But with the warm compress, eventually the lump disappeared.
Hi! Have experienced the Faslodex speed bumps on my hips/butt as well...not comfy at all! Sorry to say it has been worse with the less experienced nurse. I’m typically a compliant, it’s all good kind of patient. Well this is my 2nd time on this cancer journey and I’m speaking up when I don’t like something, which is OK for all of us to do. So when they send me the newbie to practice giving this shot, I smile and say no thank you. Kind voice, big smile but no butt cheek revealed unless you know your stuff! 🤣 It’s ok to be high maintenance here...it’s your life for the next month. They always warm it, go as slow as they can, experienced nurse and then I think heat works best afterwards. I also wait about a week and then my regular dr works on the area since it can cause inflammation on the sciatic nerve plus some light PT. I hope things go smoother your next go round!
I have been on Faslodex shots for a year. I always have two nurses give me the shots. You have to try and relax when they are giving you the shots. Some times I notice a lump too. It eventually goes away and I always mention it to the nurse at my next appt. They both rub the area when finished and I find walking after the shots helps. Also my heated seats in the car helps. I never have the shots in the same spot on my bum. It always seems to be in a little bit different area. Good luck to all of us on this journey.
I get them every single time. Yes massage helps a LOT. And reading these comments I realized I managed to forget about applying heat! But for me the massage is most effective . So when I get home I actually roll on a soft foam roller. If you don’t have one you can even bend your knees and roll that area over a table edge, deep massage works best, depends how much much flesh you have though I guess! I’ve got substantial glutes so it doesn’t hurt me to do that. The worst is when they aggravate the nerves . Some nurses I don’t feel at all, others just seem to get the angle wrong and really hurt. And just once I had a nurse that injected it so fast I KNEW she hadn’t done it to protocol so I had to ask her to please do it slower in the other side.
There is a certain amount of time they are advised to take for each injection.
ALSO, they need to hold the syringes in their hands for a couple of minutes to heat the liquid up before they inject to make it runnier. Perhaps this last nurse of yours didn’t do that.
I've had lumps about the sie of a marble from them.
Like some of the other replies, I have only had a problem with pain and a lump when either the injection was not allowed to warm to room temp or the nurse did the injection too quickly. I now ask them to make sure it is warmed up . I also ask them to take their time and go slowly as they inject it. Once I even had a bruise from where a nurse must have "leaned" against my butt cheek as she injected me. A nurse friend has said that the Faslodex is "thick" and therefore a more difficult injection to give. So I guess this is part of our issues. Also -- as I lean over, I point my toes as a nurse told me this would help which it does seen to do. One other point, I am pretty much told every month that I am "tiny " in the butt-- a comment that never seems to please the nurses... guessing this makes it harder to give as well. Most of all -- find your voice and tell them to warm it and take their time !! Hope this is encouraging and helpful to you.
You can always say you would like to lie down prone for the injections. That helps me to relax. The heated seats are a great idea that i read earlier on this site-- quite helpful, as is a heating pad that afternoon. Injections should be given over 2 minutes i think, which is a long time but very helpful for us. I agree with Jeremiah: speak up, it's your body and you have to live with these injections, hopefully for a long time!
I was on Faslodex for over 9 years and never had that happen. The Cancer Center where I got them had a procedure for the pharmacist to remove all the Faslodex that would be administered that day from the fridge when they got there at 7 or 7:30 in the morning, and if the Faslodex was still a tad cold when it was brought to the nurse, the nurse would hold it in her fist til it warmed up. (I offered to speed that up by holding it in my own arm pits--that works well!) Also, they were to take at least two minutes to administer the shot. I had been advised to stand on the foot on the side not being injected, with my weight to the side of he foot I was standing on so my hip/buttocks could relax. I would lean against a side table, chair back or even the wall to steady myself. If getting shots makes you nervous find a way to get over that! This may sound harsh or judgmental, but I suspect if I could do that, most can. I had a horrible experience with an IV infiltrating when I was a young adult and very very ill. After that, any needle made me nervous......kind of a PTSD like response, but way before anybody used that term. When I got diagnosed with bc and showed up for my first scan (which did find bone mets) I realized I had better get over that anxiety as I would be seeing alot of needles. I used a relaxation technique, relaxing with soft music, and then imagining friendly singing nurses with needles, and was able to get so far past my previous level of fear that now I can even watch the needle go into my skin! IF you need to, talk with a therapist about needles and how to get past the fear. It really is worth it and we need all the help we can get to live as well as possible with this blasted cancer, though right now things have gotten more complicated at every turn! Good luck to you! I hope you find ways to make this easier on yourself.
I was on Faslodex for 4 years. I got lumps every time. Some were quite painful. They even showed up on my PET scans. The nurse had to find a non lumping site to give each injection. One nurse did the best. She pushed very slowly and then counted to 10 before pulling the needle out. Heat helped the most. My PT worked on the knots with special tools which helped a little. The lumps have all gone away now that I no longer get the shots. I hope this helps.
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