Any helpful advice and tips welcome!
Hi so I have my first round of chemo tomorrow morn at 8am. 1st chemo combination is Doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide apparently it will take 2 hours and I have 4 sessions of these over 12 weeks? Can y...
Forum Discussion
I'm my 3rd treatment in, different to yours though.
i found the first round tough as you just don't know how you will react as everyone is different. I had jotted down lots of advice I had read in the threads here and so took note when I had a side effect what others had suggested.
I kept a diary of each day after chemo, noting any side effects. This was important because as the days pass and you hit a new side effect you forget the others :) I took this with me to the next onc appointment and discussed them all with her along with any remedies that had been suggested and we came up with a plan to manage it for next round. Communication with onc is so important, they know what to do :)
Things I have found most helpful:
hydrate! And keep drinking. I always have a bottle of water with me. Get hydrated before treatment, drink whilst getting treatment, drink to flush it all out after.
write things down - I get quite 'foggy' so have a white board with all the meds/supplements I take and have space to tick off each day or write times I take them so I know what I'm up to and taking the right things.
keep up the panadol. I suffered through my first round and then my chemo nurse gave me a good tip. Half an hour before I have the shot for white blood cells (can't remember it's name), take panadol then keep taking it regularly. This cycle I've done that and so far it's been a relatively good cycle.
i also started going to a sports physiologist, doing 3 gym sessions a week and found it really helped with fatigue and overall mental wellbeing.
I have mine every 3 weeks. I find week 1 I go through side effects, week 2 I'm fatigued from my body doing all that work fighting, week 3 I'm back to normal so I meal prep and try to get ready so I can rest as much as possible.
Hope everything goes as smoothly as possible for you xo
i found the first round tough as you just don't know how you will react as everyone is different. I had jotted down lots of advice I had read in the threads here and so took note when I had a side effect what others had suggested.
I kept a diary of each day after chemo, noting any side effects. This was important because as the days pass and you hit a new side effect you forget the others :) I took this with me to the next onc appointment and discussed them all with her along with any remedies that had been suggested and we came up with a plan to manage it for next round. Communication with onc is so important, they know what to do :)
Things I have found most helpful:
hydrate! And keep drinking. I always have a bottle of water with me. Get hydrated before treatment, drink whilst getting treatment, drink to flush it all out after.
write things down - I get quite 'foggy' so have a white board with all the meds/supplements I take and have space to tick off each day or write times I take them so I know what I'm up to and taking the right things.
keep up the panadol. I suffered through my first round and then my chemo nurse gave me a good tip. Half an hour before I have the shot for white blood cells (can't remember it's name), take panadol then keep taking it regularly. This cycle I've done that and so far it's been a relatively good cycle.
i also started going to a sports physiologist, doing 3 gym sessions a week and found it really helped with fatigue and overall mental wellbeing.
I have mine every 3 weeks. I find week 1 I go through side effects, week 2 I'm fatigued from my body doing all that work fighting, week 3 I'm back to normal so I meal prep and try to get ready so I can rest as much as possible.
Hope everything goes as smoothly as possible for you xo