I have had 2 cycles of Carboplatin and Docetaxol I had a bad reaction and had to be admitted to hospital. The onc has now changed me to a weekly dose of Taxol, one dose every 3 weeks and a week off. Can anyone let me know what the side effects are like when having it weekly and if it accumilates over the weeks.
Dear Puff Puff
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hi I had one docetaxel and ended up in hospital for 10 days ,was moved onto weekly taxol managed 8 before side effects got too much but everyones different ,bad neuropathy wobbly legs and nails falling off to name a few x
I’m a little confused by your post. Do you mean you are having 3 weekly doses followed by a week off?
I have just completed a course of 12 weekly doses of Paclitaxel (Taxol), and I didn’t get any weeks off, aside from my 10th week being delayed for a week as I had quite bad diarrhoea.y tummy was mildly upset right throughout my chemo and is just now getting back to normal.
I found the first 7-8 were quite ok. The first few cycles I occasionally had sharp, shock-like pains in my back, stomach or legs. But they were really random and momentary, so I never resorted to painkillers.
I had some mild numbness, mainly in my feet (heels and some toes). My nails started to get really painful in the last few treatments, and now I’m nearly 3 weeks post-chemo, some of my nails are definitely lifting off the nail beds, at the tips, and I keep th really short so they don’t catch. They are also odd shapes, some are quite spoon-shaped! Funky colours too!!
The fatigue effect is cummulative, and I found it worst on days 3-5, but I was never bedbound, and on my good days managed deep water workouts, walks, and rehearsing with my singing group, although I often couldn’tanage to stand and sing for the whole three hours weekly!
On the whole I found it much easier than Adriamycin/Chlorophosphamide that I was on for 4 x 3 weekly cycles to start with!
Everybody reacts differently though, so don’t expect identical se.
I had Taxol for 18 consecutive weeks with no missed weeks. Not heard of having week off. But different Patients different ways of doing chemo. I coped with the side effects but the fatigue exhausted me. Finished end of April and hair now returning but very slowly.
In 2010-2011 I was on weekly Taxol (paclitaxel). The schedule was planned to be 18 treatments - weeks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 etc. with no chemo on weeks 4, 8 etc. Hope this makes sense.
Unfortunately I had unusually bad side effects (more typical of docetaxel) so I had to change to a different chemo after 5 treatments. I realise this might be discouraging, but there were two small plus points (by comparison with EC chemo, which is similar to AC): no sickness, and the side effects didn’t kick in until about 3 days after each treatment.
I hope the weekly Taxol is effective for you. My onc described it as “gold standard” for secondaries, and as a “trickle-charge” dose by comparison with having a higher dose of Taxol every 3 weeks.
I managed the equivalent to 11 taxol taking the docetaxel into account (which counted as 3 taxol ) and had good results from that amount I"m now on herceptin for as long as x