Not Your Parents’ Chemotherapy: New Solutions for Nausea, Hair Loss, and Other Chemo Side Effects During Ovarian Cancer Treatment

Today, things are different. Your doctor has a whole arsenal of effective treatments to combat nausea and other unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy. "I tell my patients, with modern medicine and modern antiemetics that you should never have severe nausea and you should never throw up," Dr. Ulm says.

The standard chemotherapy regimen for ovarian cancer is typically a combination of two drugs:

• A platinum-based drug like carboplatin (Paraplatin)
• A taxane drug like paclitaxel (Taxol)

Each one of these drugs can cause its own set of side effects. But in most cases, your doctor can give you medicines to lessen these effects.

Fighting Infections

Chemotherapy works so well against cancer because it targets cells that divide quickly. The problem is, cancer isn't the only type of cell in your body that multiplies rapidly. New blood cells in your bone marrow do the same thing.

Chemotherapy drugs can damage all three types of blood-forming cells, causing these problems:

• Red blood cells that carry oxygen to your body: anemia
• Platelets that help your blood clot when you're injured: thrombocytopenia
• White blood cells that help your body fight infections: neutropenia

Losing your white blood cells, and with them, the ability to adequately fight infections, is an especially big problem now that coronavirus is spreading. "One of the things that’s changed in the coronavirus days is that now we’re giving everybody this drug called Neupogen or Neulasta, and it helps boost your white [blood cell] count," Dr. Ulm says.

Fatigue

Another unwelcome effect of carboplatin may be extreme tiredness. Fatigue tends to get worse, the more cycles of chemotherapy you get.

Managing anemia, if you have it, should help ease the exhaustion. There are also things you can do to give yourself more energy, like taking rest breaks during the day, exercising often, and getting a full 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night. Your treatment team can give you other advice on how to beat fatigue.

Nerve Damage

Both types of chemo drugs can damage the nerves that send sensation to your body. If you have this damage, called neuropathy, you may have symptoms like these:

• A 'pins-and-needles' feeling
• Pain
• Burning
• Numbness
• Weakness
• Trouble feeling heat and cold

These symptoms may get worse with each additional cycle of chemotherapy you get. Your cancer treatment team should watch you for symptoms like these. An adjustment in your chemo dose might be enough to stop them.

Or, your doctor might prescribe one of these medicines to relieve nerve pain:

• Steroids
• Numbing patches or cream
• Antidepressant medicine
• Anti-seizure medicine

Treatments like physical therapy, relaxation techniques, and acupuncture might also help. Nerve pain and other symptoms sometimes go away once you finish treatment. But in certain cases, they can last long-term and require ongoing treatment.

Hair Loss

Because your hair is tied into your self-image, its loss can be devastating. And the hair loss with chemotherapy affects not just the scalp, but also the eyelashes, eyebrows, and other areas of the body.

Hair loss typically starts two to four weeks after you start chemo, and continues for a few weeks afterward. Eventually, the hair should grow back. In the meantime, you can conceal the loss with a scarf or a wig custom-made for you. You might also try a scalp cooling cap, which helps to reduce the amount of hair lost.

Knowledge Reduces Fear

Having an idea of what to expect when you're about to start treatment can make chemotherapy a lot less scary. Before you start your first cycle, ask your doctor about the medicines you'll be taking and how they could affect you. Also find out what treatments you might get to help alleviate these side effects.

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