Advice about pain.

Hi  and welcome to this corner of the Community, although I had a different type of Lymphoma (Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma (Skin Lymphoma) and totally different treatment journey...... but random pains were part of life during the early cycles of my treatment.

I reported everything to my team, I was checked out including ECG and the conclusion was nothing was wrong.

But my brick sized growth on my neck had enclosed a mass of nerves and muscles and the pain was off the scale. Once I started treatment my mass was being attacked and the mass started to ‘dissolve’ but this resulted in massive pain as the muscles and nerves were let loose from the mass. I had very strong pain meds to take when I wanted. For me it did improve as I went through the cycles but took a number of years for all the aches and pains to go.

These are some useful links for you to have a look at:

Nausea, she must not to suffer in silence when it comes to nausea there are lots of tools available - but her team need to know how she is getting on as it is often trial and error.

Fatigue can hit at random times, there is not set pattern for this. Fatigue may well build up over time so take each day as it comes but at the same time keep some activity going as this does actually help overcome some of the fatigue.

During my 6 cycles of R-EPOCH I was on my chemo for 120 hrs 24/7 at a time and the main issue I had was fatigue but my nurse team told me to keep active so I walked the ward corridors with my chemo stand after every meal and actually did a few miles a day.

Avoiding Infections obviously is very important but you will totally get this during these challenging times.

I would also highlight the importance of drinking lots of water as this will flush out all the toxins released by the chemo and protects her kidneys.

Hi, I would agree with Mike about the fluids, drinking lots really does help to keep everything moving (in all ways!) 

sometimes sharp digging pains can be as a result of the cancer dying (yes it can be hopeful) and should lessen as the cancer dies steadily. Daughter experienced that after her third trial drug. 

Hope they can sort out the nausea for her though, ask about Emend(Aprepitant) as it’s the best. I gather it’s taken about an hour before chemo though.

Hugs xxx

Hi ,

I recently underwent 6 months of ABVD for Hodgkins which was present in my neck, chest and lung and I also experienced shooting pains in my chest.  I found that this type of pain was most prevalent after my first few treatments and was not present after about 3 or 4 treatments from memory.  Although I have no idea if this is true, I put it down to the drugs doing their thing as my interim PET scan showed complete response after two cycles.

Additionally, I was prescribed neulasta injections to increase white blood cell production which I had the day after chemo and this also caused persistent pain and tightness across my chest and neck around day 5 and 6 after treatment.  I'm not sure if your partner has also been prescribed this injection but I just thought it was worth mentioning as I was checked over a few times with this pain and in the end, we just worked out it was "normal" for me and it was probably the neulasta working.

I hope this helps and I wish you both all the best for the remainder of treatment.