Neuropathy in hands after chemo

Hi Ellie1,

We hope you are finding the support on our online forum helpful.

My name is Keith and I’m one of the Cancer Information Nurse Specialists

I hope you are finding the support from our online community helpful.

This sounds like a difficult time for you all right now.

Every situation is different from your husband’s diagnosis of bowel cancer to the way his body react to his treatments. Cancer treatments side effects vary from person to person. Usually, once treatment stops side effect can improve but some can become more of a chronic long-term issue.

However, on this platform its difficult to individually assess and diagnose the exact cause of what’s going on with your husband’s situation right how.

You have mentioned neuropathy and symptoms of his hands still being swollen. Even after treatment stops side effects can sometimes worsen or new side effect can still occur. For this reason, we would always advise you to contact his chemotherapy team to have his symptoms reassessed. This is because they would have a greater understanding of his clinical history and would usually take ownership of any symptom management or refer onto any other appropriate health care professionals if needed. This may very well be peripheral neuropathy, but other possible causes would also have to be investigated and ruled out.

Peripheral neuropathy is damage to the nerves that carry messages between the brain, the spinal cord and the rest of the body.

For most people, the symptoms of cancer-related peripheral neuropathy will slowly improve when their cancer treatment has finished. But in some case can be become more chronic. There isn’t really a cure for this, but symptoms can be managed in different ways. Looking at this video from Bowel cancer UK may be helpful.

In some trusts late effects clinics are becoming more accessible. it may be worthwhile to discuss this further with your husband’s treatment team and to see if there are any late effect clinics running in your area. Even if there aren’t any late effects clinics, they may be able to refer to other health care professionals to try and support you both with your husband current symptom for example physiotherapist or occupational therapists or pain control teams if appropriate to do so once his situation has been reassessed.

On this platform it can be difficult to have a two-way conversation and to fully understand what you are going through.

If you’d like further explanation or have any other questions, please feel free to recontact us. Or if you it may help to discuss things with someone outside the loop please feel free to give us a call or contact us via our web chat platform.

take care

Keith, Cancer Information Nurse Specialist

You can also speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email.

Ref KM/CF

Thank you for taking the time to reply Keith. I realise it is difficult to diagnose individual responses, particularly online. I’ve called our Red Line and it seems it’s a waiting game at the moment in the hope that toxicity will dissipate and he will feel better. Thank you for your care and concern.