I had round one of fec-t on thursday afternoon, within a few hours I was very dizzy and vomitting, which fortunately subsided, but the next four days feeling nausea and flu like pains in shoulders, groin and legs. Monday mild vertigo kicked in but by the afternoon even laying on the sofa was making me giddy. Today the nurse got me some emergency supplies of Prochlorprozine and some five hours later feeling an improvement. Along with sore dry mouth, horrid taste and smell, feeling wiped out with no energy and chemo brain. Im told this could be the pattern for me on subsequent treatments, which is very worrying as I really didn’t want to be this debilitated
Hi I,m sorry you,re feeling so rubbish. I was also on fec-t and can honestly say the side effects after the first treatment were by far the worst, I thought I,d never get through it. But fortunately it did get slightly better each time and I actually coped better with the ‘t’ part. Good luck with the rest of your treatment xx
Hi serenity
The first one is a shock to the body !
I had my chemo between oct and feb if this year the first three made me really sick !
But don’t suffer in silence call your chemo nurses, they can really help with the sickness and what drugs they give you ! I had three lots of anti sickness pills and there was more on offer if I needed ! I found that I took the domperidone as a preventative, nurses said I could overlap it with what they gave me in hospital because it works in a different way !
The receptors in the brain are saying I’m dizzy and I want to be sick and there are drugs that can help ! Again ask your nurses I’m sure they ll help x
I had a very good diet through my chemo, took multi vitamins, drank lots of water, made smoothies and veg juices depending on whether my body could take them !
That’s what helped me, you can’t stop side effects but between diet and the hospital helping it can ease them a bit !
I’ve had two operations since my chemo and nearly through my radiotherapy now it’s a slog its not easy and it really is a test of your strength, but have a countdown of some kind it helps, by treatment or weeks or months, it helps x
Hope this helps a little, good luck
Kay x
FEC is grim for me too. I think it’s a shock mostly, especially if you’ve been a busy person before. Keep calling your nurses, and they should really give you relief through medication. The steroids really helped for me. I am on my second, and to be honest the first was the worst- which leads me to believe that some of it is shock.
Barrocca, spirulina and aloe Vera but sometimes I just feel bad, and go to bed.
What’s your temperature like? It’s very important to keep an eye on that as you know - I had v low neutrophils levels on my first chemo which I managed to control with injections for the second.
I agree with Samantha on the temperature front !!! I wasn’t so bad with nuetrophils until I got to the taxotere ! The hospital gave me little temperature strips but we went and bought a little digital thermometer for accuracy as I thought I was just being paranoid, I had two over night stops and a week in hospital with neutropenic scepsis ! Is vital to keep on top of temperature as I avoided nasty infections by checking and getting help straight away ! All three times late at night before bed !
Again the nurses will help you just have to ask even if it means calling the emergency numbers they give you in the middle of the night, they told me not to wait till morning as it can be dangerous with letting infection take hold !
Good luck to all of you from someone who has been through it recently, lots of positive thoughts
Kay xxx
Hi,sorry that you’ve had a tough first chemo. I’m having my 6th out of 8 tomorrow. The one thing I’ve learnt is to take each cycle as it comes as mine have all been different.
My first FEC saw me land up in hospital on antibiotics for 5 days with a fever and awful headache plus felt like passing out every time I stood up. My second made me feel really sick and tired two hours after treatment but next day woke up feeling fine and had good energy and very few side effects. On my 3rd FEC they gave me Emend for the sickness and I didn’t feel sick but had no energy for 10 days. My 4th FEC was a repeat of cycle 2 and despite having Emend threw up all night and had no energy for 6 days. Throughout FEC I suffered with my veins until I got the hang of asking them to flush a large bag of saline through which helped, I also had mouth ulcers.
My 5th chemo was doxetaxol and the side effects were different, I had good energy, no sickness or mouth ulcers but very dry mouth with no taste and bone pain plus complete lack of sence of humour. Despite all this it hasn’t been to tough and I’ve learnt to take it easy in the first week and plan lots of lovely things to look forward to in the 3rd week. I’ve also managed to hang onto my hair by using coldcap.
Just take one day at a time, expect the worst but hope for the best and before you know it you’ll be half way. Good luck. X
Hi all…I am new this forum so bear with me…It is so refreshing to read all your posts and realise that I am not on my own.I am going for my 3rd session of Fec t tomorrow so am not feeling very optimistic today. The first session was awful.Sick for 5 days and then just felt out of it for the next week. I saw my oncologist and they upped the anti sickness meds for the 2nd session. I had no sickness which was great but I was still very out of it for about 10 days. I always say to friends and family that I’ll be back in 2 weeks as it’s week 3 when I start to feel like myself. I’m hoping it will be a little better this time as my body will be more used to it. Fingers crossed.
Hi all, and thank you for your responses and sorry for those having a difficult time of it.
I ended up in hospital on the wednesday afternoon with neutropenic sepsis, too weak to travel by taxi the hospital sent an ambulance! My count was 0.5 despite being on the gcsf . They got my pain under control and my count also went up to 1.5, but the fec will be tweaked next time round on the 16th!
Just home this afternoon ~ taking it very very easy .
Hi serenity, my gronsheng line been bleeding a little since it was in and now it is day 4,is it normal? How about yours? when the bleeding will be settled?
Hi Melykins
Im with the other two lovely ladies on this one!
Everyone is different with side effects, chemo wasnt pleasant with sickness and other side effects for me but other ladies i spoke to while having treatment breezed through .
Time does fly by, i set countdowns for each stage and rewarded myself for each bit, even if it was eating something nice that i fancied or going out for a walk somewhere nice
The hair is everyones concern at the begining, dont stress about it mine was down to my bum before chemo i cut it short before it fell out, some other ladies hair just thinned. But it fell out in november 2013 and started growing again after chemo number 4, feb 2014, just sprouts to start but it was hair, today its an elvin type style thicker than before and darker but its a lovely head of hair ! Look at a positive winter is good for chemo if you get hot sweats and you get to wear scarves and lovely hats through winter, made me feel less odd
For the short space of time you are on chemo it was worth it in the grand scheme of things for me, they gave it to me to shrink my lump and for me it worked it went from 4cm to 1cm which meant my op took a lot less tissue !
I finished all my treatments a week ago and ive kicked its butt it is scary before you start but we are all strong ladies and im sure you are too, good luck with what ever you chose to do x it was worth it for me to shrink that little sucker and remove it so that it never comes back x
it’s a slog its not easy and it really is a test of your strength, but have a countdown of some kind it helps, by treatment or weeks or months, it helps x