Docetaxel - Experience’s

Hello Morton, sorry to hear the staff attitude was not as would be hoped for. How these people approach us is so very very important. I hope the after effects of the chemo have not been so severe. I really admire your approach to all of this - you tell your ‘story’ with such incredible honesty and bravery.  You will soon be halfway and, from then on, it’s a downhill run to the finishing line!  You’ll get there and I really hope you’ll get there having tamed this horrible disease!

x

Ah, thank you Worriedwife…I just hope in some way I can help other people who might have the same stuff coming up.  I feel a bit rotten today but I have a nice day of rest planned and that should help a lot.   Hope you are ok and thank you for your support 

M x 

Hi, Morton,

I'm now on my thrid cycle of Docetaxel of a total of ten planned and I've had my ups and downs. I was diagnosed with advanced stage 3 PC metastasing to bones and lymph late 2020. After 2 years of Enzalutamide, with my PSA bottoming out at 0.06, the disease developed new resistant sites and PSA rose to 38. I was quickly moved to chemo. Now, after two and a bit cycles PSA has fallen to 20 and I'll take that as a potential win.

Fatigue has been bad, but eases through the cycle. That is partly because my white cell count was crashing after each infussion. Obviously there's an infection risk too. I now self-inject Filgrastim to boost white cell count and that works well. I'm now injecting starting on day 5 for 4 days to try and stop the crash happening at all.

If you are starting Filgrastim I strongly advise you take precautionary painkillers on the days you inject as the sudden burst of cell division in your bones can be very (and I do mean very) painful. Paracetomol worked fine for me.

I now have very sensitive finger tips and nails - opening a can of drink can be a bit excrutiating! I've found moisturising my nails helps, and also helps the very dry and cracked skin on hands and fingers.

And my bum stopped working. This got pretty uncomfortable, but over the counter laxatives solved that one.

I've the usual loss of taste, cotton-mouth, and so on for four or five days per cycle. I've found trying to remember flavours as I eat can actually help a little. Fortunately teh occassional GT still tastes fine!

I do try to keep exercising. It's important, it makes my spirits rise, and there's some good evidence it helps with chemo. Some days it's just not going to happen so I've learned to cut myslef some slack and accept, and work at it other days. I swim, row on the machine, and use weights. If you can force yourself into activityon those days I've found it does help fatigue, but I'm not very good at that.

Other people mentioned keeping a daily diary, and I do that too. I record temp, blood pressure, blood oxygen, and heart rate once a day at the same time, note the ups and downs of side-effects, and my general state of being. It's been useful and helps me more than I expected.

All the best to you and everyone else here. Hugs all round.

Dave

Hi Dave, this is tremendous advice, some I already do and find helpful (excercise, strong flavours and measurements) but others I would like to implement..  I have also has real problems with my fingers so I will try the cream to see if that helps. I haven’t heard of Fiilgrastin but I am off to look it up lol.  Glad to hear your PSA has come down a little, I am hoping for something similar.  I only got about 4 months max on Aberiaterone before resistance kicked in so I am hopeful the chemo will assist now. 

Thanks again Dave for input, super helpful for me and I am sure other gents coming behind us. 

Cheers

M 

You're very welcome.
Filgrastim as also known as Zarxio, so maybe you've heard of it as that. I don't mind needles, so self-injecting is all right for me, but even if you do, this has a short, thin one so it's not too bad anyway.

I was originally prescribed a high dose of Filgrastim quite late in my cycle over three days. It worked, but I still had bad fatigue. It was only in the last week that I started to feel anywhere like normal again.

Apparently a big part of the fatigue can be because of low neutrophil (white blood cell) count, the injections boosted them, but a bit late. This cycle the doctor gave me a lower dose for four days, starting earlier, on day 5 of the cycle. It seems to have made a huge difference because I'm now a week in to this cycle and feeling so much better, sleeping well, and with energy in the day. I'm both waiting for the fatigue to kick in and hoping it won't. 

It sounds like you're really looking after yourself, and giving yourself the best of chances. Good luck to you.

Morning...we are off to the hospital in half hour to see about treatment.....GP later as Dr wants to see him about some results......I'm worried but glad we are moving in the right direction.

Thanks Dave, this is very helpful to know and something I will talk with doc about at my next pre chemo meeting.  Thank you I am doing my best to give things every chance.  

M 

Good Luck Dancing, please let us know how you get on, thinking about you 

M 

Hi all, thanks in advance for reading or engaging. It is just about a week  after cycle 3 and I thought I would update on things so far.  Although there was a reduced dose I have still been battered to some extent with side effects of the chemo.  The worst this time around is the tiredness (never felt so wiped out in my life), nausea again, muscle cramps and the progress of the peripheral neuropathy.  I have also had a lot of bone pain but I am not sure if that is chemo or disease progression.  I did receive some correspondence from oncology (which I had requested for work and other reasons) which discussed the progression and reset prognosis based on that.  I won’t go into the fine detail however I really need to see a response from this or the next cycle. 

I am beginning to feel a little stronger now though and hope by mid next week I will at least have pre chemo levels of energy back and be more able to get on with things day to day.  Despite the diagnosis I was quite fit and healthy before the chemo, everything was happening on the inside of the body quietly.  It is this issue of quality of life versus treatment which is in my mind most days.  The next few weeks will determine.  

I hope you are all well. I am hoping Dancing50 got on ok and have been sending thoughts. 

Take care all and as ever I trust this is useful. 

M x x 

Hello Morton, it sounds as if it’s been a tough few days of this latest cycle. I’m so sorry to read that, even with a reduced dose, you have been so badly affected. I hope you begin to gather some strength this next few days.

it seems that you are very much questioning whether or not to carry on with the chemo?  Can I urge you to talk to your loved ones and your medical team and do the research to get a full grasp of all the facts and figures before making such a big decision?  

my thoughts are very much with you as you battle through this difficult time. Xxx