Hi, I start my first Fec on Wednesday, I have been feeling very positive this last week, my best since my surgery but now I am getting more anxious by the day, please can you tell me what to expect and any tips that may help, thanks
Hi Karen I have just completed 3 rounds of fec and due to start t next week. I know everyone is different with side effects but I can honestly say for me they have been minimal and I have managed to pretty much continue as normal which means working and being a Mum! They are very good for giving you cover for anti sickness meds and they can easily tweak them if they don’t work for you so make sure and let your nurses know. The side effects I did have were a metallic taste in mouth which wore off after about a week, odd bout of tiredness, a bit of constipation after fec 3 sorted out with some senokot! I was physically sick once during a treatment but that was more due to the tightness and pressure of the cold cap and they gave me an anti sickness injection before the next one and I was ok. For fec you get three different drugs so you will have a bit of time one to one with a nurse as she does the injections so it’s a chance to ask questions if you need to. One of the drugs is bright red and can turn your wee the same colour afterwards so be warned that is normal apparently!! Avoiding infection is also important but not always possible! I take a little bottle of anti bac with me everywhere. I change to t next week and must admit am pretty nervous as I’ve heard it can be a lot more severe but will take every day as it comes. Hope it goes ok for you I’ve tried to eat well and stay active even just a short walk everyday if you can manage makes a difference. Don’t let this horrid disease get in the way of the important things in your life!! :)x
Hi @Karen Marie,
I start my first fec next thursday.
I have joined the may chemo forum for those of us starting in May. Take a look, you will get lots of advice and support.
We all need each other going through this awful journey.
I had my first Fec on 11th May and I didn’t find it easy. The nurses were amazing!
I had severe nausea for 4 days and suffered with a headache similar to a hangover. Once the first week was over I started to get back to normality but found I needed a little snooze in the afternoon as I found I got tired easily. Everybody has their own different experience, it is doable and better than the outcome without it. You can do this! ?
Hello ladies, I’m from the October thread and had fecx6. I was quite lucky and managed to get away with minimal SEs and worked all the way through and through my rads too. My advice would be don’t suffer in silence, call your chemo unit if you’re really suffering with nausea or anything and they’ll tweak your meds. Also if you’re on ordansetron that’ll bung you up and I was given laxido which I used to start taking the day after chemo until I was going normally again. If you’re having fecx6 and have any questions then feel free to pop on and post a message on our October thread as there were 4 of us on there who had fecx6 and someone should be able to answer.
Hi Minnie just finished first T have my second (round 5 nearly there!) tomorrow. It’s been a mixed one I thought I was ok the bone/joint pains were more of a discomfort than painful and lasted 3-4 days so not horrendous. But then after that my temperature went up and I had to go to the hospital and get iv antibiotics and I’ve been absolutely fine since! I am getting a blood booster for the next ones to try and prevent infection so fingers crossed. Tastebuds are better than fec everything is just a bit bland compared to the Metallicy taste. So far brows and lashes are still there… how have you got on? Hope it’s not too severe x