Life as a cancer patient: ‘it feels like dying from the drugs meant to save me’

Post by jcims » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #90

jcims wrote: post #30

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Trying to help my wife through chemo now, and the staying hydrated and eating something is kicking our butts. Her oncologist believes that her nausea is due to directly to disease progression and it's relentless. We're now on a regimen of phenergen every 6 hours but that just prevents cyclic nausea from occurring AND it knocks her out to where she's sleeping at least 20 hrs a day. Then when she wakes up she can only…

Dehydration itself can make a person nauseous. You don't have to take anything orally to treat dehydration. A bath or shower can help with hydration at times when she can't stand to take anything orally. Dehydration isn't always as simple as a lack of fluids. It can also be impacted by a lack of electrolytes and inadequate fat. So it may help to add salt to the bath. Table salt can be problematic for someone in frail…

Post by ddingus » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

jcims wrote: post #66

ddingus wrote: post #58

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My wife suffers nausea. It is pretty extreme. There are different forms of marijuana. We tried a few. It took a few attempts to get one that worked. If she is able, try the different forms. Edible, topical, etc... One that worked early on was simple. Heat it for a half hour at 235 degrees F. This converts the THC to its active form. That raw plant material, ground fine and put into empty capsules worked and was easy…

This is great thank you! Do you recall how you managed dosage with the capsules? Also with vaporizing does she use a dry herb vape or concentrate/oil/pen? I’m nervous about giving her a coughing fit.

Post by refurb » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

markbnj wrote: post #99

refurb wrote: post #96

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Sure, but there is always a need for more beds. It doesn’t end. At some point, the money runs out. That’s what countries like the UK do with QUALY measurements. You have X billions of Euros to spend, so you spend it on the most effective measures and say “no” to everything else.

> Sure, but there is always a need for more beds. That doesn't make any sense. Basically you're saying the more beds there are the more sick people appear to occupy them.

Post by Lordarminius » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

FakeComments wrote: post #4

Lordarminius wrote: post #2

A line from a passage I remember reading as a medical student, has stuck with me after a decade and a half. It described anticancer therapies as having the effect of "... poisoning patients to the edge of their existence..." It is not my belief that the side effect profile of anti tumor drugs has improved much. So, yeah. Treatments for cancer can suck just as badly as the disease itself.

That’s not just the effect, it’s the mechanism of action for chemo — right? It takes advantage of cancers rerouting blood and being overly aggressive in gathering resources to make those the first of your cells to die as you’re poisoned to death, on the theory that there’s some slightly sublethal dosage that kills only some of your cells (and hopefully, the cancerous ones).

Post by nugget » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

copperx wrote: post #98

odiroot wrote: post #71

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Congratulations! My father unfortunately passed away from the same cancer. 6 months after the diagnosis, having already done 6/8 chemo infusions. His liver was giving up by then. He also went from nearly 90kg to around 42kg in the end. It is really a terrible cancer. He didn't have any symptoms until the year before his death. By then it was stage 4 already. I'm abstaining from alcohol since then.

Does alcohol intake increase pancreatic cancer risk?