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Possible bone mets after TNBC

ClareS1988
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Hi,

My mum was treated for tnbc back in 2020. I can’t remember all the details as I’ve blocked it out, but after chemo and surgery, her overall staging and grade was stage 3 grade 2. 

At the end of August, she started to feel pain in her lower back. She didn’t feel the pain on resting if she kept still, it didn’t wake her up in the night and it seemed to ease when moving around. After taking painkillers, hot water bottles and plenty of rest, come mid September, it had pretty much gone.

Cut to last week, and she says she can now feel it again. She works as a cleaner. After finishing work on Wednesday last week, she came home from a job and says that is when she noticed it start again. Thursday and Friday she was ok but said she felt a few niggles on Saturday. After a 2 hour car journey yesterday, it has made it worse and she is in agony.

(As a side note, she was diagnosed with Osteoporosis a few weeks ago, but not sure if this can cause lower back pain)

She has taken paracetamol tonight and the pain has pretty much gone but unlike last time, she now says that around 4am, the pain wakes her up and she has turn over and lie on her back as it is painful to sleep on side.

I’m obviously terrified about secondary cancer to her spine, as we are around the peak recurrence time for TNBC.

Im just wondering if anyone has any more clarity on bone mets to spine symptoms? As I’ve had a read on google, and I’ve seen lots of conflicting information. One website says it’s good sign if no pain on movement, another website says it’s a bad sign, one website says the pain comes and goes, another website says it persistent pain, so I can’t really find any straight answers.

I will be making sure she sees the gp but until then if anyone has anything similar or any information on symptoms, I would be grateful x

  • Hi Clare

    My mum was diagnosed with bone mets in spine and ribs after Tnbc, however she had only had operation, no chemo or radiotherapy.  Her pain first presented itself as pain that came and went (doctors said it was her fibromyalgia flaring up).  it then became constant and worse at night, but that maybe that was because it was in her upper spine, which was under pressure when she was lying down.

    When your mum was recently diagnosed with Osteoporosis, did she have an xray of her back?  My mum's mets showed up in an xray that was done, when i kept pushing the doctors to do something, they just kept prescribing stronger painkillers.

    It is good that your mum' s pain is controlled with normal pain killers, but really push her doctors to have an xray or scan. You may have to make a fuss, but keep at them until they agree.

    My mum was fobbed off for months and it unfortunately had spread to lungs and liver also, so there was nothing that could be done for her.

    Hopefully it will be ok, but you cannot be too careful!

    Best wishes

    Annie

  • Offline in reply to annie123

    Good Morning Annie,

    Thanks for your reply.

    My mum didn’t have an X-ray for the Osteoporosis, she had a Dexa scan. I’m not sure if these scans can show anything untoward?

    She can feel the pain at night but I’m not sure if she would describe it as worse at night than during the day. She says sleeping on her side hurts, so she has to lie on her back and then she can’t feel it, however, she doesn’t find sleeping on her back comfortable, so she then has disturbed sleep.

    Would paracetamol get rid of pain caused by spine mets or would it not do anhthing?

    She says when sat down still, she can’t feel any pain but if she twists, it starts to hurt. Bending and twisting when stood upright also cause pain.

    Not sure if this is just an injury from her work, but she doesn’t recall doing anything specific to set it off.

    When they say that the pain comes and goes, do they mean over a few days? Or can it mean you can go weeks without pain but then it comes back?

    I find everything so vague online. I know the only way to be sure of anything is scans etc but we are all just praying for no bad news before Xmas x

  • in reply to ClareS1988

    Hi, sorry but i am not sure what a dexa scan would show.

    Mums pain would come and go during the day, but there wasnt any days that she didnt feel some pain, to some degree. 

    The problem is she did suffer badly with fibromyalgia, so i dont really know when the cancer pain started.  She was diagnosed with secondry cancer two years after her mastectomy.

    Hopefully your mum is just suffering from disc or muscular pain, but i would still ask for further investigations.  Unfortunately, tnbc is agressive and if it comes back, you want to catch it early.

    I hope that it all works out well for her.

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