Would welcome comments.
At the end of last year all treatment for my oesophageal cancer (chemotherapy and immunotherapy only) was concluded and I was discharged into palliative care. At that point I could still swallow occasionally and therefore take tablets including steroids to try to alleviate my problems. The ability to swallow has deteriorated to the position where I can't take tablets or even liquid versions so can only have drugs by daily injection. I constantly have to spit out highly sticky mucus all day and night and can't sleep or eat. I get a one hour window for eating after an injection of buscopan and am hoping to move to a 24 hour injection soon via a pump driver.
Does anyone have any experience of the effectiveness of these devices? I also have weekly opioid patches.
With not eating or sleeping I now have no muscle strength, stamina or energy. I sleep about 12 hours a day and am in constant severe discomfort from the pit of my stomach.
Has anyone with similar experience found any other drug helpful. I've tried about 6 others (now limited because of not swallowing)?
I don't want to be tube fed or otherwise treated just as a body to be kept alive so I do hope there might be one last opportunity but I'm not worried either way.
Sorry if this sounds depressing but thank you for reading it.
Kindest wishes,
Mottie
Hi Mottie You are obviously going through a very distressing time and I just wanted to express my sympathy for you. Unfortunately I cannot help with your medication question and I would hope that someone on the site can come forward with some help. I appreciate your thoughts on being tube fed but could I suggest that this might make you a lot more comfortable alongside your pain relief medicines.There is no need to operate it full time and you could establish a routine where you only use it when asleep. I used an NG feed tube for 2 months so have some appreciation of this even if I can't relate to your overall situation. My very best wishes to you. This can be a horrendous disease to deal with.
dont give up, the foam and gloopy stuff is a normal, amazon blue sick bags were a god send, i had a feeding tube fitted before my op, literally was ony way of feeding me, was in my lower bowel as they used my stomach to reconstruct my oesophogus, eating still a massive learning curve, being coeliac too, makes it even more tricky but getting there. on here loads of honest experience, the pump isnt that bad, as anglars said did do some at night and some in day, it was just calories, and energy, chase the dieticians as a lot of us have said, the shakes and soups you get when you start losing weight arent the best. keep us updated how you get on and as we mostly have all found, you do need to kick back sometimes and chase, lots of experience and help on here, got me through some very dark times, even know still reach out when struggling, take care
jules
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