Anyone tried Cold Therapy to prevent neuropathy in Taxol Chemo

Best of luck @Sally_AS. K xox

Thank you very much for posting this information, I’m finding it really helpful.  I’m starting chemo today and will be armed with ice & cold packs. My dear friends already have the gloves on order, coming from the US.  I’m trying the cold cap too. The Oncologist seems to think that I will be cold enough all over for my fingers to toes to be okay from potential nerve damage, with the just the cold cap.  Let’s see! 😀

And remember that ANY yoga is good yoga , toes tucked or not  :) 

Thank you for the kind thought but it’s not really, it just gives me the irrits from time to time. If I had been a dedicated runner, it might have been another matter, but then again, where there’s a will, there’s a way. I can’t tuck my toes in yoga, but can improvise my way around that. The good part is that it’s still the improving, however slowly or microscopically. The best part is that I am 7 years NED. 

@Afraser I'm sorry to hear about your after affects in sensation from chemo. That sounds challenging. xx

It’s acknowledged as relatively common but I think one of the issues is what is recorded as ‘damaged’. I can fasten buttons, write, type. I can walk and more recently stand on my toes. I am effectively not limited by my PN. I won’t run because it’s too uncertain and I occasionally get irked that I either feel that I am walking on a mattress or on ridged sand when I am walking on a perfectly flat surface. But statistically I agree that I am not damaged. But if wearing socks and mittens will stop others having this side effect, go for it! 

Hi @strongtogether,
I would definitely recommend the socks with some extra ice packs around them - they last well, the full hour and a half with the extra ice packs to keep them cold. I rest my feet on the esky I take. The gloves lose the cold quite quickly and are very expensive. I think you could save money and not get them. I use them and then add ice gel packs inside and then use the medium bodichek gel packs on their own, gripping them so they cover both sides of my fingertips especially. I have a photo of this I think, I'll see if I can find it to post. Its great you are going to help out with this because its a bit of a two person job.
I would invest in the Bodicheck small and medium icepacks and the socks personally. Ebay and Ubuy are the sites to find the socks, see above.
I take an esky with a range of gel icepacks and use most of them by the end of the session.
Feel free to contact me directly if you want more info.
@Afraser just from reading forums here and overseas, I think that neuropathy from Paclitaxel and Doxacetal is actually a big problem and affects a lot of people permanently or for years, like you, and also that many people lose their nails and have ongoing problems with them, but that its not spoken of as most people are sent off from treatment with the promise it is going to improve and by the time they realise it isn't that isn't recorded.

Good luck with this. Peripheral neuropathy usually improves/disappears after treatment but sometimes it doesn’t. Don’t forget the feet, which have proved the slowest recovery (if they ever get that far) for me.  6 years in, I have no
pain which is fine but I doubt if my feet will ever feel normal again. So precautions can be worthwhile. 

Does anyone else want to buy some? I actually dont care what they cost, I just want to understand where to buy the best gloves/socks and how to use them. I'm happy to donate them to the hospital too. If this stuff works it should be available for whoever needs it. 
I'm looking at I buy and to be honest the gloves and socks all look a bit rubbish. They look like they would be ok for icing an injury but they dont really look like they would have decent overall coverage. You would want to put the ice pack in them and then submerge the whole thing in a bucket of ice water.  Is that what people did?

Thanks @sallylovestosing for all your advice and encouragement. Feeling ok day 2 fingers crossed, mouth is going chalky early though!  :s