Chemo and liver enzymes

Hello @lisadej1. I would like to invite @carlavan, @shenriq, @susanellis, @misty45, and @esperanzam to this discussion as they have all discussed being diagnosed with essential thrombocythemia and a few have discussed taking Hydrea as well.

@lisadej1, while we wait for others to join the conversation, would you mind sharing a bit more? If you have to take a break from the hydrea, has your provider discussed with you what your next steps would be?

@JustinMcClanahan So far the Hydrea has worked well, although I have had a few times when my platelets went up with no explanation and she mentioned in passing about another treatment that targets the platelets only (I don't remember her saying what it was) and then, of course, taking out all your blood, taking out platelets and putting your blood back. I know this has a name but I cannot remember off hand what it is.
Both other alternatives more expensive for sure.

No she hasn't said. I would be interested to hear if anyone else on hydrea has ever had elevated liver enzymes and what they did. Thank you!

I have metastatic breast cancer and have had around eight chemotherapies (and other treatments). On the latest, Eribulin, tumor markers have gone down drastically but liver enzymes are up-not catastrophically, but ALT and AST are somewhat up. Bilirubin normal. But I am completely exhausted and don't have much appetite. How to proceed?

Hi @melpub, welcome to Connect. Oh golly, you’ve been through the wringer with all your cancer treatments. They can do a great job with eradicating the cancer cells but unfortunately can toss in some collateral damage along the way. My liver was particularly impacted by chemo. I had a liver biopsy at one point to make sure there was no permanent injury. The good news is that once I was off the chemo, the liver did regenerate and the numbers are back to normal.
I made sure to eat foods that had supposedly have a positive impact on the liver. Here’s a quick article with some of them: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/11-foods-for-your-liver

It will take time for both you and your liver to rebound. Chemo, while a life saver, takes a toll. It’s traumatic to the body.
But our bodies were made to heal! The keys are rest, proper nutrition, plenty of protein and lots of water daily(room temp works best)…toss in walking and gentle exercise and you will slowly start building stamina and endurance.

It’s pretty normal to not feel like eating right now. Too much on plate always intimidated me and actually the look of a full plate made me nauseated. Here’s what worked for me. Try for smaller bites of food throughout the day. My husband had little snacks prepared for me in the fridge such as containers with cut up portions of food. Example…he’d have PBJs cut into about 8 pieces, chunks of string cheese, roasted chicken breast cut in pieces. Little deli cups sizes of pudding. He’d make a large omelet in the morning and cut that into smaller mini omelets. (I know, I was spoiled! LOL ). But those smaller portions allowed me to just grab a bite and close the lid before I’d get the fragrance of food. I was very nauseated from having a bone marrow transplant so NOTHING appealed to me! Having those small bites of food really got me through the worst of it.

Since you’re new to our forum, there is a very active and supportive Breast Cancer group with many discussions.
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/group/breast-cancer/
Here’s a discussion to get you introduced: Metastatic breast cancer: Anyone else
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/metastatic-breast-cancer-to-the-bone/
What does your oncologist say about your liver numbers? Are you finished with chemo now?

Thanks, Lori, this is encouraging. Will have liver values tested again this week--skipped last week's chemo because I felt awful and the oncologist thought she should test liver enzymes. I hope they will have improved by this week and thanks for the list of liver-friendly foods!

@melpub, how are you doing? Have your liver values improved? Are you able to continue with chemo?