Constant profuse sweating, soaking my sheets. Then chills and shivering. My thermostats a wreck.
Taxol also has some other side effects which have made it less fun than the A/C (Adriamycin/Cytoxan). For one, I am constantly breaking out in full body sweats. Then I’m freezing.
Not just through chemo, but still… 7 years out. I am freezing. Or I am sweating. Nothing in the middle.
Axillary cording and myofascial scarring build up restricts movement of my arm and causes my hand to contract and pull up towards my shoulder.
Hypersensitive left forefinger due to pinched nerve
Maybe due to the fact that I have the Inability to relax my body at all, this burns so much energy and keeps me set at 0.0 energy, just intense aIl encompassing fatigue. Muscle fatigue causes my muscles to burn out while washing my hair, or climbing stairs, any basic task that I wouldn’t have hesitated to do in the past. Now I am tired and in bed by 9 and must take a long nap every, single day.
My digestive system is wrecked. I have constant nausea and am feeling dehydrated even though I am constantly drinking water. I have stomach pangs, cramping tight stomach aches and diarrhea every day.
Updare after second series of chemo treatments: The nausea is not nearly as bad with the taxol as with the a/c. However, I have gone 180 degrees in that with the A/C I had diarrhea for 8 weeks straight, I’m now dealing with excruciating constipation.
Another internal system completely on the fritz. The good thing here is I can try to control this with diet.
Since pumping my body full of chemotherapy chemicals I have noticed a lot of the symptoms of what is known as “chemo brain”. It is like a heavy fog over your mind that you just cannot shake. Like if you have been awake for days and just can’t pull your thoughts together, or when you take strong cold medicine and can’t bring your head out of the clouds to focus on anything and it feels like your ears are ringing and your brain is stressed. I have memory loss, difficulty concentrating, inability to focus. It is a very real and very difficult issue.
I cant keep a thought long enough to process it. I can see gaps in my mental connections. I can’t understand why, but i see it happening. I was a great student in school and especially loved math. Now I have a significant loss of mental ability in math, even the basic concepts don’t make sense any more.
I especially have confusion, which is sometimes frightening. I become disoriented and have lost my way home in my own neighborhood. Driving around I always find my way home, but it is uncomfortable when there’s other people in the car with me. I also now have difficulty with times and dates and knowing how much time is passing. I don’t recognize faces of people I know. I use what my kids and I call “Mad Lib” words – when I am trying to speak, I use “any noun” instead of the one I was trying to say. I might say apple when I mean banana or monkey when I mean giraffe.
Loss of sense of smell entirely
Failing bones, triple disk removal, bone spurs and 4 level plates and screws with 3 level fusion. Sometimes I can’t hold my head up at all.
It literally feels as though I’m getting stabbed in my bones in my lower back, hips and shoulders, a quick and acute pain that comes and goes in waves and basically causes me to writhe until it passes.
Joint pain in every joint in my body. Especially my knees hips ankles and shoulders. I keep a pain log when I can. There are still times when I cannot get to tracking or to logging my pain because I simply don’t have a minute by 8 p.m. I’m drowsy and and exhausted and falling asleep and up at 6 and it’s all I can do all day to just fight off the pain and the overwhelming exhaustion and the headaches back aches, knee, ankle, feet and arm aches. And everything else. I’m so over this.
Neulasta is extremely painful to have that going on in your bones, especially in your joints. Coupled with the Taxol which is also notoriously painful to the bones and joints, it was almost unbearable for me last time.
Nerve damage in my arm, hands and feet. Feeling like pins and needles at best, like nails or razor cuts regularly and like the burning of burnt skin with razor cuts soaked in peroxide at worst.
These are the exact products I have, use. and l♥ve.
CBD Oil is especially helpful with issues concerning nerves, and the help I got within 2 weeks of taking CBD oil was amazing. I gradually upped my dose and lowered doses of my prescription meds until now I am ONLY using CDB oil for nerve pain. And it works better than the destructive meds I was on, like Gabapentin. Not good stuff.
As they said, this chemo would be brutal on my bones, and it was. I had a loss of almost 2 inches height, with uneven loss in leg lengths, so my left leg is now more than 1.5 cm shorter than the right. This now requires shoe heel step for my right side. Before I realized the trouble with my legs, I began to walk after my largest surgery with an improper gait, which led to more pain and more physical therapy.
Chemo destroyed my gut flora – which controls histamines. Now I have constant hives all over my body in weird patterns that look like cat scratches and perfect circles. Insanely itchy and never-ending.
ITCHBlock is the Best NATURAL Itch Relief Cream – apply directly on hives (or rashes, bug bites, dry skin, etc.) and you will feel immediate relief from this calming, soothing and not-greasy-at-all cream. And, best part? It’s natural! No endocrine disruptors, non-toxic (toxin free) and food-grade edible. But don’t eat it, mkay?
It is usually around $9 and although the tub is small, it lasts a long time. It’s the best ten bucks you will spend today, for sure.
An acupuncturist suggested that Kombucha might help with my histamine/hive problems. I had tried EVERYTHING. I was on two pharmaceutical prescriptions, an Antihistamine A-Blocker and an Antihistamine B-Blocker. Nothing was working. I figured, “why not?” and gave it a shot.
I got almost immediate relief from drinking one bottle a day. If I miss a few days – the hives creep right back in. Every time. There is no doubt in my mind that this quality kombucha has balanced my gut flora and ended the eternal hives. You have to try it.
A true digestive elixir that’s spicy, soothing and invigorating, KeVita Master Brew Kombucha is energizing with a bold brewed tea taste. Fermented with our proprietary kombucha tea culture, our Master Brew Kombucha has billions of live probiotics, active cultures, and is verified non-alcoholic.
Kombucha is not for everyone, and there are some really, really terrible tasting options out there.
Go buy this now! I cannot provide a link as it needs to stay refrigerated, so you can’t order it online. But you can visit the KeVita website here, and they have a tool to enter your zip code and they will show you the closest place to buy it. It is also pricey at about $3 per bottle, but that’s nothing compared to the prescriptions I was able to cancel once I started drinking this every day.
I have researched thoroughly and truly recommend any product that I suggest on this site. My goal with recommendations (and with the website) is to uncover what's in many of the products we use daily, discover alternatives that do not include the cheap toxic materials, but still work just as well or better. There are some affiliate links where I make a small portion of any sale I refer. If you have any questions, please ask. I'm happy to help when I can.
Radiation and chemo caused macular degeneration, loss of vision, two cataracts.
Newly diagnosed, and likely caused by radiation: Severe asthma.
I suffer extreme loss of breath, wheezing, and crackling in my lungs. I am always short on air, sometimes to the point where I am dizzy or fall. My long term blood Oxygen levels have been between 75 to 90% for years. I have been seen at my doctors, urgent care and the Emergency Room for issues related to this.
Eventually I was sent to the specialist in Elizabeth City. Surprise! It’s severe asthma!
I am quite sure this has something to do with the buzzing cloudy feeling I always have, mental slowness, total fatigue.
During my very first surgery – the lumpectomy – a nerve was accidentally cut on my left shoulder area. I have significant loss of range of motion left arm, with a constantly stiff arm and shoulder. Left hand grip strength tests at half of right hand strength.
Due to the removal of the lymph nodes in my left armpit area, my body is less able to process lymph. This results in backed up fluids, especially in the upper left quadrant of my body.
Aside from the tightness in my swollen skin, it also feels like my arm weighs 100 pounds. With no gallbladder and a reduced lymph processing system, plus previous bladder and kidney stones = significantly reduced body cleansing.
My arm is swollen and the skin feels tight because of my lymphedema, which could also be contributing to the pressure and headache my shoulders and other muscles, which all stay constantly contracted.
My shoulders are so sore and tight. My arms and shoulders are spent, burnt out and maxed out. I feel like I’m dragging sand bags with me shoulders are being pulled to the ground
My left hand is swollen and the skin burns.
