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Weakness, nausea, exhausting vomiting, hair loss – these are symptoms experienced by cancer patients. However, there are drugs that prevent the side effects of chemotherapy.
– The chemistry will literally throw you on your knees – that’s how Katarzyna from Warsaw tried ineptly to prepare her relatives for treatment. Not only was the Cancer Center scared, but she was also terribly afraid of the first infusion. Katarzyna at the age of 39 faced breast cancer.
Chemotherapy
One of the methods of treating cancer is chemotherapy, i.e. administering drugs that destroy cancer cells. They also damage other healthy cells, especially those that divide intensively. These include, for example, cells of the gastrointestinal mucosa, bone marrow, and hair follicles. Hence, after some chemotherapy, there is vomiting, diarrhea, anemia, a decrease in the number of leukocytes and platelets, and hair loss. Nausea and vomiting appear in the first day of chemotherapy. They can take up to a week after you stop taking the drug. They are often accompanied by a lack of appetite and, depending on the drug used, also a taste impairment. Many sick people do not tolerate these ailments. – Vomiting and nausea affect over 70 percent. patients taking chemotherapeutic drugs, such as, for example, cytostatics. Women complain about it more often than men with cancer, as well as people under 50 – says Dr. Renata Zaucha from the Oncology Clinic of the Medical University of Gdańsk.
Also read: Is it possible to recover hair after chemotherapy and radiotherapy?
Vomiting with chemicals
The corridor of the One-Day Chemotherapy ward is a place where patients tell terrible stories about their treatment. – When you listen to it, you can make a horror movie. Maybe it brings them relief, but for me it was too scary – says Katarzyna. He says that the mere sight of the unit was depressing. – Patients are lying next to each other. In the room there is a bed, a cupboard and a basin lined with foil, set for a known purpose. Hear the sounds of people who already use these pelvis. – Acute nausea and vomiting occurs in the first 24 hours after administration of chemotherapy. In the first day, the severity of these ailments is also the highest. In the next four or five days, many patients are still suffering, but vomiting and nausea are usually less severe – says Dr. Piotr Wysocki from the chemotherapy department of the Greater Poland Cancer Center.
Special Sea-Band Acupressure Anti-Nausea Bands for children or adults are effective for chemotherapy-induced nausea.
Nausea medication
All patients receiving chemotherapy are afraid of nausea, which is terribly exhausting and exhausting. – I was afraid of them more than my hair loss, which we know will grow back sooner or later – says Katarzyna. He wonders why no one tells patients about a drug that can prevent these ailments. – Neither the doctors nor the other patients told me. I also didn’t find anything on the forums. It was only my pharmacist friend who offered me this preparation – she recalls. At that time, the drug was not reimbursed and cost PLN 300.
She bought a drug and came ready for chemicals. She took the tablet an hour before chemotherapy. The first time she was very scared because she didn’t know if the pill would work. – But it worked just fine. The drug was so effective that the black predictions did not come true, the nausea did not occur, that is, it fulfilled its role. Chemistry did not bring me to my knees – he says.
Fighting cancer
After the infusion, Katarzyna returned home by car. Her husband was driving. – I was afraid that this road would be a nightmare, but it was not bad for me. When we got there, I went to the garden and played with the kids. My sister was surprised, she expected me to get out of the car on all fours. Of course, I was weakened, with time after the next infusions of chemicals, my legs and arms began to go numb. I thought during the next chemistry courses the nausea would come, but luckily it didn’t happen – she recalls.
– People who have not experienced the fight for life with cancer have no idea how important it is to effectively reduce symptoms such as nausea and vomiting. If the therapy is better tolerated, it is easier to find motivation to fight the disease, and this is the basis of success – Katarzyna recalls.
Alleviating the side effects of chemotherapy
Meanwhile, some patients delay the time of infusions due to fear of the side effects of chemotherapy. Doctors emphasize that many ailments related to chemotherapy can be relieved with appropriate drugs. They explain that when a patient cannot eat or drink, they become weaker and their body may become dehydrated, making it difficult to heal and heal. In addition, eliminating ailments caused by chemotherapy is very important because it improves the patient’s well-being, and this also has a positive effect on the course of therapy. – That is why it is worth asking doctors about such drugs – say oncologists. A prescription drug has recently been reimbursed to prevent the side effects of chemotherapy. It costs 3 zlotys and 20 groszy. It eliminates the side effects of cisplatin in a dose> 70 mg / m2, which is the most commonly used chemistry in patients with breast cancer and lung cancer.
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Read also: Chemotherapy – truth and myths
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