STARTING TREATMENT

Hi Bumchum66  good news that you have completed your radiotherapy. Symptoms usually peak at day 10-14 after treatment so you should start to notice an improvement very soon.  The skin tends to heal itself pretty quickly. My treatment consisted of radiotherapy and chemotherapy at the same time. I had a one off short infusion of mitomycin administered intravenously on day one of treatment, followed by 8 tablets of capecitabine a day for 5.5 weeks. This chemo combination  tends to be well tolerated, the only side effect I had was feeing nauseous from day 2 to 7 of chemo for which I was given anti-nausea tablets which worked a treat.  The other chemo regime for anal cancer chemotherapy is usually Mitomycin in combination with 5FU (fluorouracil) which sounds like the regime you will be having.  You will be provided with information leaflets which will detail the drugs and potential side effects. Not everyone will suffer all the listed side effects and for each side effect there will be a medication to counter them, eg anti-nausea, anti-diarrhoea tablets.  It's best to immediately begin to take the anti-nausea tablets rather than waiting to feel nauseous.  On day 1 of the mitomycin infusion I was given an intravenous anti-nausea infusion and then continued with the anti-nausea tablets.     General side effects of the chemo are nausea, diarrhoea,  tiredness and a  drop in your white blood cell count (you will have bloods taken on a weekly basis).  Please advise your treating team of any side effects.  I hope you don't feel too unwell on your birthday, but as you have said above, everyone reacts differently so I hope you will be one of the luckier ones.  Bev x