Hi all, iv just finished 4/4 docetaxol and found the mental side of it hard to bear, iv had chest pains, shortness of breath and my legs feel like iv run the London marathon can anyone tell me wethe EC is easier going than Docetaxol?
I had all docetaxol ( I had Docetaxol and Carboplatin alongside Herceptin). The good thing about it is that it does not make you feel sick - they give out pills in case but I have never met anyone that took them. The worst part is that after about 4 or 5 days you feel as if you have been run over by a bus! It does not feel painful but you just feel exhausted and no amount of rest makes you feel better until it wears off.
You get very high doses of steroids and it is when they wear off that the fatigue sets in, because I was having all docetaxol they tapered my steroids ( you get 8 a day, the day before, the day off and 3 days after) so with the 24 for 3 days after they told me to take fewer pills for more days. So I took 6 a day for 3 days (18 pills) then 4 pills on day 4 then the last 2 on day 5.
You might get water retention too. All in all the worst is being tired but I was lucky in that I could stay in bed and had no children to get off to school etc. After about day 10 you start to get back to normal.
I had 3 cycles of EC first and didn’t find this too bad. I’m now on my 2nd of 3 Docetaxel and have found this much harder. I’ve had joint/bone pain and found fatigue a big problem. So for me the docetaxel has been harder. Fingers crossed you find the EC easier. It did make me nauseous but the anti sickness meds dealt with the worse of this x