Hi
Im a week past my second cycle of FEC and having awful nausea and headaches. Just wondering if anyone else has this and for any tips on how to deal with it. Its taking me anout 10 days to get over side effects enough to get up and dressed!
Hi Ka,
Welcome to the Breast Cancer Care discussion forums, I’m sure there’ll be lots of support for you along shortly from the many informed users of this site who have a wealth of knowledge and experience between them.
I have put for you below the link to one of the threads on the forum called ‘top tips to help you get through chemo’ where there is a lot of discussion on this topic. I hope it helps.
breastcancercare.org.uk/forum/top-tips-to-help-get-you-through-chemotherapy-t19110.html
Take care,
Jo, Facilitator
Hi Ka
Sorry you are having a rough time. Have you spoken to your chemo nurse about the nausea? If your anti-sickness meds aren’t working, there are plenty of others to try and hopefully you will find one that works. I’m not sure what you can do about the headache - I used to get one with FEC that felt like a hangover. Are you drinking plenty of water - I think that helped a little?
finty x
Thanks for your reply, Iv been drinking loads and trying to eat well. As for the hangover feeling I’m one of those who don’t usually get them but I imagine this it what it feels like. Iv been given quite a few painkillers but nothing has come close to touching it. Quite anxious about the next cycle as uv felt so bad after the first two.
Hi Ka,
You’re not alone, I’m 5 days after my 2nd FEC and feel terrible too, lots of nausea and getting headaches also. My 1st session was far easier only took a few days to start feeling better but this one’s horrible!
Also really tired and have a constant nasty taste/smell… oh the joy!
Ginger ale’s and sparkling water (not together) helped me a bit with the nausea.
Lucy xx
My head felt like dead weight thinks it something to do with hair folicles not nice 2 say but when my hair came out it went sorry
My hair has mostly gone now-fell out over about 3 days two weeks after first FEC and also on my 28th birthday! Nevermind I’ll have it back for my 29th! I’m having quite severe tension headaches across my eyes altho I don’t think I’m tense and not really an anxious person at anytime. Who knows I’ll talk it thru with the docs next week wen I go for my bloods.
Hi Ka
I was very similar to you through FEC. I had a lot of sickness and nausea and terrible headaches. I think that my headaches were partly exacerbated by the fact I couldn’t drink very much in the first 3 days or so after I received the FEC. Getting treatment for the nausea is very important for that reason. Also finding something that you can find reasonably palatable - strangely for me it was fizzy drinks. From about day 4 or so I switched to green tea.
If you are having trouble drinking anything after your chemo has been administered it would be worth speaking to them about giving you some additional fluid through the IV. I had this and did help.
Painkillers - I don’t know what you’ve been given but I had high dose co-codamol (only available via prescription) throughout all my chemo. These did help to take the edge of the pain. I was also tried on tramadol but they didn’t agree with me.
Nausea - I found one of the best things for this was domperidone which again I took throughout the whole cycle of chemo to keep this under control. You can take this before meals which helped me to eat something. Again you’d want this prescribed. If you are having vomiting or very severe nausea please let me know and I’ll let you know more about drugs for that.
Definitely speak to your team about this. If you go to a chemo unit I’d ring them up and ask them before your next FEC.