Hi there. I have had one round of chemo on 1 October and about to have second one tomorrow. I have stage 4 bowel cancer with liver mets. I had no symptoms it was all picked up on a FIT test. Just wanted to reach out to anyone else who is on the same treatment to compare notes on side effects. I went in one the 1 October at 10am and came out about 4pm. I had antisickness, 30 minutes of Irinorecan chemo, then 2 hours of Oxaliplatin with fluorocil. I went home with a pump for 2 days with Fluorocil. I felt like I had been hit by a truck, very fuzzy in the head and tired. They gave me anti-sickness drugs to take home and steroids. I had to take the steroids for 3 days afterwards. They were very effective at keeping any sickness at bay, but although tired the first night I was wide awake at 2.30am! The next night 4.30am and ever since I'm up about 6am. I have managed to go out for walks everyday and I even went to a Zumba class last Wednesday. I find it is good to keep moving and getting fresh air is good for my mental health. I have hot flushes and then I feel cold in my head. My feet and hands are sensitive to cold and I have to drink warm drinks and avoid anything cold. The Oxaliplatin gave me spasms all over my body. These eased off after a couple of days. My legs felt like jelly and I had pins and needles in my fingers one morning 5 days later. On the 7 October I developed a face rash, it felt like my skin was coming off. I was advised by chemo nurse to try anti-histamine which seem to have worked as well as lots of moisturiser. I have felt much more like myself the last week but obviously not looking forward to tomorrow. Good luck to you all out there currently dealing with a cancer diagnosis and to anyone who is going through treatment right now. Take care and any hints and tips on how to cope with side effects would be gratefully received.
Hi Millie
My own cancer was endometrial but I did have chemotherapy and although there can be differences with regimes, all these side effects are similar to what I experienced.
The best thing to do I found is to keep your diary up to date with how you are feeling each day and to continue to contact your hospital when you are experiencing side effects or need some support. I found often that there was medication that could help. I found symptoms tended to follow a similar pattern with each cycle and there was some build up of tiredness etc with each cycle.
Getting outside and having some fresh air on days when I felt up to it, also helped me.
Another thing to mention is whether it would be worth asking for a tapering dose of steroids and for me this made a big difference. They normally send you home with 2 days and I found the sudden stopping on day 3 would make me feel rough. Having the dose tapered slowly over the next couple of days helped. It also helped with sleeping as I found the steroids would keep me awake at night.
I had a related chemo drug and did have the painful spasms and was prescribed naproxen.
The pins and needles is something to mention to your consultant as this can be an early sign of neuropathy developing. I had this and they altered the dose slightly to help.
I hope that your second chemo went ok and that you are not feeling too rough. Do give the Support Line a call if you feel like talking things over would help. They are there from 8am-8pm daily.
Jane
