Anyone tried Cold Therapy to prevent neuropathy in Taxol Chemo

Thank you for taking the time to write so comprehensively on this topic.

Hi @Caz1, that's great, I have messaged you. A warm blanket helps a bit brrr!

I've been meaning to write a final account of my icing.
I am such a strong believer in spreading the word about cold therapy. Which is why I have been banging on about it here!!
My experience has only made me more convinced that this information should be shared more widely.

My final thoughts
I think the gloves are expensive and you can do it without them. 
I bought two so it cost me nearly $200 after currency exchange, duties and delivery, you can't get them here as far as I can tell, and they only last well for 20 minutes. Its hard to keep your thumb cold too because it is at right angles to your fingers.

By the time I finished last Thursday I was instead using nurses rubber gloves and a tupperware of ice as I mentioned. Photo below. I used cold socks for my feet.

I had had one week when the infusion dragged on, the drip kept tripping off and it went an extra half an hour, and later my fingers were a bit numb and my fingernails sensitive and discoloured in parts. For the few weeks left after that I was more careful with my icing, thumbs are hard to keep cold in gloves and I changed over to the tub of ice to make sure I was keeping them cold. 

I'm a few days out from my last infusion now (hooray) and my fingers and feet seem fine. Any minor numbness in the tip of my thumbs and index fingers seems to be improving already. Touch Wood!

I have a few dark patches mostly on my thumbnails and one fingernail which was damaged years ago and has come loose a bit at the end. But they don't hurt.

I think that you will know if the cold therapy is working because when it doesn't your nails get really sensitive. That's my experience anyway. The tip of my right thumb has been my barometer, when it felt numb I knew I hadn't iced enough. You need to ice before and after the infusion for at least 10-15 minutes. 

The Natra Cure socks are great. A bit cheaper than the gloves and easier than putting your feet in ice bowls.
They come with little ice packs over the toes and under the soles of your feet. I found they lasted the full hour and a half. If they didn't feel cold enough I rested them on a Bodichek icepack. Pics and details in an earlier post.

I bought my socks on Ebay here:https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/254053480072?ul_noapp=true
But you can get them maybe cheaper on Ubuy. Again links in an earlier post. Along with links to studies and forum chat from overseas.

People with chemo neuropathy often talk about ongoing numbness in the soles of their feet so while I only did my fingers not really my hands I made sure the base of my foot was covered. I rested them on another ice pack if I felt they were warming up.

If you didn't have the socks you could just rest your feet on the Bodichek ice packs and have one over and tie them on to start with. I sat my feet on the esky we brought.

All the nurses were accomodating and interested in my cold quest. By the end they were spreading the word. Last week I set up a girl who came and asked me at chemo with a kidney bowl snaffled from the nurses, some of their gloves and my extra ice as she was starting paclitaxel and hadn't prepared. A bag of ice and a plastic container, borrow the gloves from the nurses station and you are set for hands at least.

I would lend others my kit but I have a friend who does Paclitaxel in a few weeks and I've promised it to her.



Good luck to everyone icing or not. Happy for anyone to DM me for more info.

Hi @shs14, I’m wondering how you are going with your cold gloves and socks.  I’m starting taxol this Friday. Have left it very late but am going to buy  the socks, and think I’ll give the gloves a miss and do the diy option you and poodlejules suggest.  
I’m cold capping too...find sedation helps me get through it all a bit easier as it’s soooo cold. Not looking forward to all the coldness! :(

Hi @Sally_AS
I had AC first too but have only used cold therapy for my Paclitaxel course as that is the one I'd heard was more likely to cause neuropathy damage (I did consider cold capping just my head for AC).
If you look further back in this thread I've posted a few links to different things.
Here is the study page link again.
https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/4443215/Effects-of-Cryotherapy-on-Objective-and-Subjective
My port was very sore for the first couple of days but I've grown used to it now though every so often I touch it and it feels freaky! You'll be glad you have it though and the nurses will love you!
Warrior woman vibes back at you!!
And thanks @poodlejules  :*

@Sally_AS I lost my hair during chemo (tried the cold cap but it didn't work well enough to persist) and spent a year going to pull my hair over my ears to keep them warm when I was going to sleep. Habits of a lifetime are hard to break! I love my short hair and am keeping the style. K xox

Thanks so much @shs14 had the first session of AC (4  x each fortnight) yesterday with the cold cap. The kind nurses offered Panadol & sedation which I gobbled up, as the port side was still bruised from surgery Friday (plus was also still bruised from accidentally  smacking it with my hairbrush. I’d forgotten that I had a new stylish short haircut which now only needs a light finger comb ....for the next few weeks...anyway). I have a life long habit of yanking my brush vigorously through my long, curly hair and when my hairbrush no longer met with resistance and scraped down my new bruise...Tears! I had 3 days to enjoy my stylish Audrey Hepburn look, and now look like Emmet from the LEGO movie).  
I digress - I have 12 x weekly Paclitaxel in round 2 & I thought this was the particular potion that caused the neuropathy. I have had a look around but can’t find the links that you mentioned. I’m also going to look for some papers too (I have a Science background). 
I will have gloves & socks hopefully arriving by round 2 of the AC. 
Thanks again for your personal reply. Sending “Warrior-woman-kick-butt” thoughts to you all. 

And I meant to add well done @shs14 for sticking it out , not long to go now :)

Good luck ladies! Just a word of warning on the nails topic. Stay away from shellac! I had a function to go to back in June and went to a nail salon for a french polish .They talked to me into shellac instead of regular polish on my long healthy nails and 3 months later they are horrible. Discoloured from where the shellac was ground off (they didn't tell me that bit!!!) and very fragile and splitting all the time....so mad  :open_mouth: especially after all the trouble I went to with the ice.
Happy spring everyone!

Hi @kabash,
I have a bit of numbness in my right thumb after an unintentionally extended session the other day (week 7) when the drip kept turning off. So last week (week 8) I upped the ante and took a tupperware full of ice to put my hands in when the Elastogel gloves warmed up. It was a good solution and I think you could easily do the whole course this way. As I've said the Elastogel gloves aren't perfect and don't last the whole time.

If you go the ice route make sure you wear some light rubber gloves, I just borrowed some from the nurses station. Maybe a small esky to take extra ice depending on how it lasts for the whole session. Try and ice up before they start. I wait till my port is accessed for the saline and then ask them to come back in ten minutes. The nurses are always happy to accomodate my cold packing.
I think the bucket of ice method is an excellent way of keeping your hands cold and when it gets unbearable I just took them out for a bit. You'll get the feel for it. I crushed my ice to make it easier to put my fingers into. Try and keep both sides of your fingertips cold.

@poodlejules used this method the whole of her treatment and avoided neuropathy.
The socks on the other hand have been a good investment and I wear them and sit them on an extra icepack if they don't seem cold enough. They seem to be keeping my feet safe.
Good luck with it!

@Sally_AS I wish you luck too with your cold therapy too. I'm so glad you found the information useful. I wanted to do cold capping but my oncologist said it didn't work for AC chemo. But I thought it important to avoid neuropathy if I could. I'm eight sessions in and just a bit of numbness on my right thumb. And some of my nails have light brown spots, mostly my thumbs which are hard to cover as they face a different way to the fingers! I start my sessions with the gloves and socks and then add ice packs into the gloves and then as I told @kabash last week I used a simple tupperware with crushed ice and rubber gloves for my hands (an extended session which added half an hour to my infusion the week before seemed to have accelerated the browning and numbness so I was determined to keep them extra cold for the remaining time. And they were very cold  :o )

The NatraCure socks are great, and cover everything. I sit mine on a Bodichek icepack on top of the esky if they don't seem cold enough. 

Great good luck to you both @Sally_AS and @kabash I hope it goes well  :)

Happy to answer any questions you have about chemo or cold!

I have had a sudden change in my regimen and where I thought I had a month to prepare for taxol time and think about buying cold gloves/socks it looks like they might be giving me this treatment today. So I have brought a small bucket for my hands and some food storage containers for my feet and my mum is going to buy some ice. It might be a bit basic but I would like to try it, based on my reading here and elsewhere about cold treatment improving various side effects and particularly the peripheral neuropathy. If it gets too cold I will just take them out until I can cope with putting them back in. And after chemo today I will try to find a proper solution for next time. Thanks for the helpful info.