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Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:00 am
by tater
Quickly as I am on break at work.

My wife finished radiation on her pelvis in May of 2017, after we had chemo and surgery the first of Nov. of last year. We just had our first scan since surgery and got great results as things appear to be clear and their was no evidence of disease. We got out of sequence because we had five spots show up on the liver during treatments. At surgery the removed two on the bottom of the right lobe that appeared to be the largest and most suspicious. They came back benign. Her latest MRI suggest that the remaining three spots on her liver are also hemangiomas as they are actually decreasing is size. The CT scan showed a lot of inflamation in the pelvic region around the re-connection point of the colon to the anal diverge. She had her rectum and sigmoid colon removed along with her uterus, overies, small sliver of her vagina and iliac nodes on the right side.

What are some things we should be doing to help the inflamation go down? The surgeons say it is from the affects of the radiation. She can not have her reversal surgery until it goes down.

Second question. Her CEA has been as high as 26 and 29. After radiation is dropped to about 2.5. During Chemo it went over 3 but dropped down to 1.5 after surgery about 8 weeks ago. We just got her results back to day from last week and it rose to 2.1. My wife is freaking out. What do I tell her?

Re: Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:36 am
by susie0915
My oncologist told me not to worry about small increases in CEA so long as they're staying within normal range. Mine generally is less than .5 and went up to 1.1. I emailed her concerned and she said not to sorry. The next CEA was back to less than .5. Hopefully, your wife won't worry too much, but maybe if she can contact her oncologist he/she can put her mind at ease.

Re: Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 5:46 pm
by tater
She's got a call in. I am wondering where she is a celiac post surgery she started to eat some gluten to get weight back on. I hear that gluten for a celiac can cause inflamation but I'm not sure if that is truth or fiction. It's just odd that the first test after surgery it was at 1.5 and now after the second test its gone back up to 2.1. The doc says anything below 3 is normal.

Re: Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 5:53 pm
by Lee
MY CEA bounces around. It can go from 2.5 to 3.5 then back down to 3.2, etc.

What they are looking for is an upward trend over a few CEA test results

Lee

Re: Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 8:30 am
by rp1954
Your wife's CEA spread is well within normal scatter for "no change" at this point following RT and will be unimpressive to the drs. Whether further immediate chemo is planned or not, I personally would monitor bloodwork more closely than is "standard" to define a nadir, her markers' noise/fluctuations, and any subsequent rise more clearly and timely.

What are some things we should be doing to help the inflamation go down? The surgeons say it is from the affects of the radiation. She can not have her reversal surgery until it goes down.

I'd ask around places from the biochemically oriented, oncology oriented naturopaths or alternative MDs about anti inflammatory strategies. I found Life Extension Foundation's articles and ND helpful with alternative answers free on their toll free line. I found RIordan Clinic's free answers useful on vitamin C, some supplements and cancer. Patients often bounce back from treatment much quicker with advanced nutrition plans and do better in surgery.

We were able to damp down long running inflammation and markers' "noise" with these nonstandard chemistries, even while on chemo. Dealing with a colon cancer patient, there was no radiation involved. Our specific circumstances and chemistry might not match yours, but our combined anti-inflammatories included things like fish oil, baby aspirin, celecoxib, IV vitamin C, serrapeptase, MSM, bosweilla, curcumin, EGCG, silymarin, quercetin and other flavonoids.

Re: Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 9:13 am
by heiders33
rp1954, can you tell me how your wife takes curcumin? Is it in pill or powder form? I am planning to start taking it but want to make sure it has maximum effectiveness. I think I read on another board how to do this, but it was a bit confusing.

Re: Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 9:30 am
by rp1954
Curcumin caps or tablets with bioperine, but we're doing more than just one flavonoid. Total load counts.

Probably the best curcumin-cancer blog is Margaret's Corner for smoldering myeloma, where I think people have done up to 10-12 grams per day of curcumin. In the archives she talks about various pills and powder, and sourcing them.

Re: Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 9:55 am
by SweetC80
My mom's CEA would go up and down slightly, but it was more an overall picture the Onco was worried about. Since CEA was a good indicator for my mother he wanted to see big jumps or dips to better determine what might be going on. Her health portal would graph test results and it was easy to see when there was a big change (good or bad) based on her CEA with a lot of little ups and downs in between.

Re: Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:06 am
by NHMike
My CEA high was 2.7 at diagnosis and dropped as low as 0.6 after surgery but the CEA at the hospital where I had surgery done likely has a different scale for it so it's something that I ignore. It was 1.7 at my local hospital before starting Adjuvant Chemo and rose to 2.2 after my first cycle and has been there since then. The hospital test says that under 3.8 is considered normal. So I was actually normal even though I had a 100 cc tumor growing inside me.

I was stressed out when I saw it go from 1.7 to 2.2 after chemo but a lot of people told me that that is normal.

I do feel your anxiety - as there's always stuff to worry about with cancer. But I try to keep the anxiety under control with work and chores. That works for some people.

Re: Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:03 am
by zephyr
From Memorial Sloane Kettering -- Patient Warnings and Do Not Take If regarding taking curcumin/turmeric during chemo:
https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/turmeric

Re: Post Surgery Help and CEA

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 2:38 pm
by tater
NHMike wrote:My CEA high was 2.7 at diagnosis and dropped as low as 0.6 after surgery but the CEA at the hospital where I had surgery done likely has a different scale for it so it's something that I ignore. It was 1.7 at my local hospital before starting Adjuvant Chemo and rose to 2.2 after my first cycle and has been there since then. The hospital test says that under 3.8 is considered normal. So I was actually normal even though I had a 100 cc tumor growing inside me.

I was stressed out when I saw it go from 1.7 to 2.2 after chemo but a lot of people told me that that is normal.

I do feel your anxiety - as there's always stuff to worry about with cancer. But I try to keep the anxiety under control with work and chores. That works for some people.



thank you their is always something you can worry about.