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Thoracentesis: What to expect.

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My  Primary Care/Pulmonary Dr. wants me to have a thoracentesis.

From latest x-rays he said there is about 1 litre of fluid in my right lung.

My Plural Effusion has increased a little and he wants to rule out any possibility of it being malignant since I also have COPD.

Presently on 20 MG of Sprycel for the last 2 weeks- ( lowered from 50 mg by my oncologist.)

Scheduled for complete blood work this Fri, the 19th. FISH, BCR/ABL ETC. Then chest X rays.

Wants to have the lung tap done probably sometime in August.

Never had one done.

Pain wise: what to expect?

Thanks,

Chuck.

Hello Chuck

cannot offer any advice on the procedure to drain your chest but I’m interested to know why you were dropped to 20mg dosage of sprycell?

i recently started taking 100mg but that caused me some major problems with my chest and cardio respiratory function. I too also have COPD, (luckily only mild) but have been reading that TKI’s can cause problems with lungs other than fluid build up.  Obviously not good with COPD!  Have you been informed about this at all as I don’t know how much of a problem it is?

 

regards

Mick

Hi,

My dosage has been lowered from 100mg to 80 mg to 50mg and just recently to 20mg.

This is all over a span of approx 1 and a half years.

CML  was confirmed on FEB 12, 2018 till present.

Sprycel is working- my blood tests are coming back excellent:  0:.000 P190  not detected but the one side effect of shortness of breath is causing havoc.

I have approx 1 litre of fluid in my right lung right now that has to be drained.

I stopped  taking the 100mg after only 3 weeks as I felt like I had run a 26 mile marathon just going up a half of flight of stairs!

Same for the 80 MG, only on it a few months last year then lowered to 50 mg as the blood tests were coming back great but not the side effects.

I have been on the 50 mg almost a year but the past few months the difficulty in breathing has gotten  worse and the plural effusion expanded.

I was taken off of the 50 mg for approx 35 days to see if breathing would improve and it did!  I felt great!

Dosage is now 20 mg daily and so far so good. No problems with breathing , but it's too soon to know if the side effects will return.

Only on the 20mg a few weeks! 

Full blood-work for this Friday, and hopefully the results will be not detected!

If elevated, my oncologist wants to go at least 1 more cycle on the 20 mg. then re-test before any decision to change TKI. is made.  

Chuck.

 

 

 

Thanks for the reply Chuck

i started 100mg a couple of weeks ago and experiencing exactly the same problems.  Had chest x Ray today to check for fluid.  Pleased to hear you are doing well on 20mg.  Hoping my dosage can be dropped also  as I don’t fancy going down the transplant route!

Hope the procedure to drain the fluid is problem free!

 

 

Thanks and all the best to you also!