chemo

I got a real shock about the matter of people having chemo doses dropped. My oncologist talked about it . I hope you don't mind if I pass it on so you can discuss it with your oncologist. My oncologist Arlene Chan gave a talk last weekand at which she said that we are safest with the full dose of our chemo if we don't want the cancer to come back, and that we must have at least 86% of the standard dose, otherwise our chances of metastatic recurrence goes up a lot.

She said  oncologists find it hard when patients say they are too sick and cannot cope with being so sick, and oncologists may then choose to reduce the dose which is the easy solution, rather than give neulasta and also provide really good treatment for symptoms and side effects (which is what she recommends).

She said she does not think we should be left to suffer from bad side effects, but it breaks her heart to see us coming back with metastases that might kill us because we were not given help to find the right medical treatment to stop those side effects being too much to bear.

I was a bit shocked to learn that it goes like that. She said mostly they do not say:"I can drop your dose if you wish, so long as you understand this may well make your treatment less effective and make it much more likely the cancer will come back. Is that what you want." Which is what she says to her patients. They just say, "Ok, I'll drop your dose then"

best wishes with finding a good answer for you.