Chemo Side Effects

FormerMember
FormerMember
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Hi - thank you for your welcome. 

I am contacting you for some advice. My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer in February. Thankfully she had a lumpectomy in March and is now over halfway through her chemotherapy. The initial 3 chemo sessions were relatively straightforwards, and with a few teething issues and some manageable side effects, she was able to continue with her daily life whilst obviously shielding. She has a family to look after and home schooling to help with, and she was able to do this without too many issues. She had to have a PICC line fitted 2 weeks ago as her veins were collapsing which delayed her 4th chemo by a week, but it went ahead last Thursday as planned. This last 3 chemo treatments are with a different mix of medication and she has reacted really badly to this new regime. She has chronic pain, mostly in her feet, along with headaches, diarrohea, a complete lack of appetite, stomach cramps. The make matters worse she is having an allergic reaction to the bandage/paster keeping her PICC line in place and it has come up in a sore, open blister and is very itchy. She is 6 days into her new regime. I have been researching side effects and all of the above seems to be fairly standard, but I was hoping that you and your lovely Macmillan community would be able to provide some advice on how to manage these symptoms. Is there something she can do or take to alleviate anything? Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated. Many thanks.

  • Hi  and welcome to the online community

    I'm very sorry to read that your sister has breast cancer and has been struggling with the side effects of chemotherapy.

    Could I suggest that you also join the breast cancer group as this will give you the opportunity to ask questions and share experiences with others who have breast cancer.

    If you'd like to do this, just click on the link I've created and then choose 'join this group' on the page that opens. You can then introduce yourself and post your question after selecting 'start a discussion' and join in with existing conversations by clicking on 'reply'.

    The group has a dedicated chemotherapy thread which you could post directly to once you've joined.

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