THE STOMACH PAIN STOPPED Vickie-Lee Wall in her tracks. “The first time the pain got that bad, I honestly thought something had burst in my gut,” said the 64-year-old New Jersey woman, who has stage 4 lobular breast cancer.
Her oncologist had prescribed two drugs, including a targeted medication called abemaciclib, after the cancer spread to Wall’s spine in 2018. Initially the pain was relatively mild. But then it ratcheted up until, three months later, Wall begged her physician for relief. “The next visit with him I went, ‘I can’t do this at this dose.’”
Wall, who usually checks the label before starting a new medication, notes that abdominal pain is listed as a possible side effect of the drug. But while a few others, such as diarrhea, were described as potentially severe, there was no such wording regarding abdominal pain, she said.
People with cancer typically assume that side effects from chemotherapy and other drug treatments are part of the tradeoff to treat a life-threatening disease. But some researchers and patient advocates maintain that the information provided about potential side effects, particularly more subjective ones like pain and fatigue, doesn’t necessarily provide the real-world insights that cancer patients crave.