Back Pain after Chemo?

[Half-Full]

My wife recently started IV Carboplatin and she’s experienced excruciating lower back and hip pain for the first few days after her treatment (AUC6 dosing, once every 3 weeks). She has numerous pelvic metastases as well as chronic stenosis in her lower back.

We’re struggling to try to determine whether this pain is from her pelvic metastases interacting with the chemo or if the chemo may have inflamed her other chronic back issues (i.e.: toxicity that’s just manifesting itself with pain in this region which is essentially the most compromised part of her body).

Severe back pain after chemo doesn’t seem to be a very common side effect. Have any of you experienced this and if so do you and your physicians have any opinions on cause?

Regardless, the AUC6 dosing is just too much for her so we’ll be tweaking that with future treatments.

Thanks so much for any feedback.

[OneLump22]

I have metastes in my pelvis & I do get lower back pain, but it's due to a disc rolled into a ball between my L-3 & L-4 & being squeezed. My second bout of chemotherapy is on different drugs from what your wife is on once a week for 3 weeks, I'm on my last treatment. I'm sorry if this doesn't help, but I do Physical Therapy for my back.

[Half-Full in reply to OneLump22]

Thanks, we do have a consult scheduled with a neurosurgeon to see if he can recommend any particular type of PT. I hope your pain is manageable.

[awesome4ever]

Half-full I'm sorry for what your wife is experiencing. Back pain can be so debilitating at the best of times. Literature lists back pain from platinum chemotherapy agents as 'common' but the specifics are not very clear...(less than 1 in 10 but more than 1 in 100) so in my experience that is quite common when you consider the extensive use of platinum compounds in chemotherapy regimes during the last decade. It has led to a significant increase in the incidence of hypersensitivity reactions. Carboplatin in particular is listed as somewhere between 1 and 44 % for overall incidence. So if you were told that severe back pain after chemo is not common....hmmm I'm not sure about that. I would think that pain would undeniably be felt in your wife's most vulnerable areas with pre-existing mets. Another thing that is noted is that the severity of hypersensitivity to Carboplatin in particular increases with each subsequent cycle so I'm glad you will be discussing tweaking the dosing.....perhaps dropping to the AUC5 protocol may make a difference and I hope it does. Remember with MBC we always have to keep a mindset that we aren't dealing with curative so finding the treatment dosage that still keeps quality of life should be the goal. Best of luck to your wife and having you as a caregiver she is lucky. Please keep us updated. Take care.

[OneLump22 in reply to awesome4ever]

I think you hit the nail on the head. I was just having a conversation with an MD in the Pulmonary department (I came down with Pneumonia last week). I had Radiology treatment after my first chemo treatments. The Dr. described chemotherapy as setting off an atom bomb. He said you generally don't see fallout (damage done) for years. Apparently there WAS some damage to some of the lung tissue, but he's going to work on that.

[Half-Full]

Thank you, all good info. I’m getting a bit research-fatigued and you wonderful ladies are always as good a source of meaningful info, if not better, than the endless stream of FDA labels, clinical trial results and research papers.

[Iwasborntodothis]

Has you asked about taking Claritin before treatment? I'm told it helps with bone pain from chemo. I have been taking it practically every day for 2 years now. I get bone pain but not that bad. Couldn't hurt to ask.

[Half-Full]

Thanks for that reminder. She did take Claritin when she was on chemo and nuelasta several years ago. She was never convinced it helped much but it’s certainly a low risk option to try. Thanks.