Chemotherapy is an effective treatment, but it has some tough side effects.
- About 80 percent of ovarian cancer patients have a response to chemotherapy that shrinks some of their cancer.
- A regimen of carboplatin and paclitaxel is the backbone of ovarian cancer chemo treatment for most.
- Although chemotherapy is quite effective, it has some tough side effects including nausea, hair loss, constipation, and neuropathy.
- With carboplatin and paclitaxel almost everybody loses their hair.
The drugs that doctors give today are different from years ago, when patients could hardly drag themselves out of bed. That said, nausea is certainly a side effect of this chemo regimen, says Dr. Daniel Sonnenburg, medical oncologist at Community North Cancer Center. We prescribe medications to prevent it, and then to take when nausea develops. Personally, I use a lot of Dexamethasone steroid pills on days two, three, and four, after patients have completed their chemotherapy, to prevent nausea, and I’ve had great success with that.
Read MoreWhile hair loss can be upsetting “I really like that a lot of patients lean into it. They say, ‘You know what? I know I’m going to have hair loss. I know I’m going to go through this. I’m going to use my baldness as my battle scar, to show people that I’m going through this fight.’ I think it’s really cool when patients lean in to their symptoms.”
Neuropathy is another troubling side effect of the carboplatin and paclitaxel regimen. “It can present in a number of ways as a tingling or numbness that starts in the tips of the fingers, and on the bottom of their feet, and progress from there. It can feel like a pins and needles sensation, or pain.” What's most important with neuropathy is to let your doctor know how much it’s affecting your daily life. Can you button your shirt? Text on your phone? Are you able to walk around without having pain in your feet?
If not, your physician will likely decrease the dose of the Taxol, which can make the chemo treatment much more tolerable for the next cycle. What we’re really trying to do, Sonnenburg says, is prevent this from being long term or permanent.
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