Sorry you’re finding Tax such a nightmare…the 1st was the worst for me (& most of the girls on the thread I was on at the time) so hopefully it’ll get easier!
Do you have the neulasta injection too? I found that that intensified the SE’s for around 24 hours about day 4 & then it all eased up.
Funny how we’re all so different…FEC for me was horrendous, with 11 days of nausea & a horrible furry mouth the whole time. Whereas with Tax, I did spend 2 full days in bed shattered & had a funny throat for a few days, but I recovered far more quickly & felt fab for the rest of the time.
Good luck with the rest of your treatment & I hope the gabapentin starts to knock your aches on the head for you!
Hi,
So sorry to read you are sufferingon Taxotere. I had FEC and Tax in 2007, and the sickness and fatigue I experienced on FEC were nothing compared to the pain on Tax! For 3days afterwards I felt like my whole body was in labour…it was like contractions waving over and over, and was, quite simply, a nightmare!
What I would urge everyone to do is to write the extreme symptoms down, and make sure that you explain to Dr how bad it was, and that they ‘yellow card’ the side effects. When I suffered so badly, they all seemed surprised, as if I were the only person who had complained of it!! Yet I know lots of people go through this particular hell. It is till a relative ‘newbie’ as far as chemo treatments are concerned, so the more info we give them now, hopefully it will help others in the future.
It does stop and I know it is a very effective chemo treatment, but we need to be allowed to know what we may expect, and not be treated like wimps when we suffer extreme pain!
Best wishes,
Jax
I did have the Nulasta injection the day after my Tax but when I’ve had it after my FEC I was fine.
I’m taking Naproxen (1 twice a day) but I don’t know if it has helped. I will be taking the gabapentin tonight (2 of them) but really want to feel like myself again when I was on FEC.
I haven’t been at work for months either and really want to get back plus we are moving house on 30th April if completion takes place then. 30th April is my next Tax!
I was told that some patients have some joint discomfort with it, a bit like being achy with the flu and to just take Nurofen. I honestly was not prepared, especially the weekend after the first infusion - I could not even walk across the landing to the toilet unaided as I was in so much pain.
What didn’t help me is that they think I may have gone through the menopause the same weekend, hence the extreme nature of the side effects. I just seemed to suffer an overnight menopause, no hot flushes, nothing. A gynaecologist they referred me to said sometimes when you have chemo everything hormonal just suddenly shuts down. I had a period the week before I started FEC in Nov 2006 and that was it.