I have just spent three days virtually comatose with exhaustion…this time vinorilbine induced…but you name it…AC/taxotere/carbolpatin/gemzar/taxol…all of them have brought days of that euphemistic ‘side effect’ ‘fatigue’. I look up chemotherapy fatigue on the web and read that 'for many patients faitgue is now the most distessing side effect" Too right. I used to think that chemtherapy meant endless vomiting and then I discovered anti emetics so I’ve never actually been sick…for which I’m eternally grateful…cause I sure wouldn’t have done this amount of chemo if I’d been SICK…but fatigue fatigue is somthing else. On bad days I can bearly move from bed, I am too tired to lift a knife and fork to my mouth, I ache, I weep, I despair and I swear, each time I swear that i won’t ever do it again…but how conditioned I am that I always do.
The same cancer website recommends remedies for ‘fatigue’…among them ‘distraction tactics’ (listening to soothing tapes…well soothing tapes irritate me after 20 minutes), ‘exercise’ (oh now you are joking) and ‘task management’ (which seems to involve limiting trips upstairs with the vacuum cleaner…)
I did see a glimmer of hope in the thread on ritalin…bring it on, bring it on…
but in the meantime I’ve had enough…and sometimes rather guiltily am glad that I’m running out of treatment options cause then I won’t have to keep feeling like this. Only problem is…feeling the cancer promises to be worse…
fatigue has been the main side effect for me too and although I was told Vinolribine was an easy one it was one of the worst for me. That and Taxotere. On top of the fatigue it also weakened my muscles so now I keep “pulling” them. I have tried soothing tapes, lol, chucked them out after day 2, get tired even thinking of exercise and as I said before, cleaning is near enough impossible. Don’t have chemo anymore but still exhausted. According to my onc the cancer itself causes fatigue as well, so “I shouldn’t” blame it all on the chemo". Oh well, having an off day so probably not the right time to post. I was shattered when they told me my body couldn’t handle another chemo but now I am rather glad I don’t have to go through that again, so you are not alone in feeling like that.
Oh heavens I didn’t realise the cancer causes fatigue. Does it then follow that the more sleepy the more cancer - or should one not leap to that conclusion.
I don’t quite see how relaxation tapes help. I can hardly read the paper without nodding off and relaxation tapes will surely make me more sleepy.
The truly weird one for me is walking the dog and feeling like I’m going to go to sleep - standing up and walking.
Jane the ritalin thread is on the american site I followed the BCC link
Yes my hospice nurse is always saying progressing cancer causes fatigue but I know my fatigue is at the moment primarily chemo related…I know the timescales only too well. As I’ve had quite a ot of chmeotherapy now I think the impact is also cumulative…even on my good days I don’t feel particularly well, but nothing like the bad chemo impact days.
That’s how I knew I needed to go back on chemo. I was getting more and more tired each day and able to do less. Been on chemo since Nov and still tired . Fingers crossed my uggers keep shrinking and I can have a chemo break with more energy than I have now. This has been my week off so I usually catch up with house work but it is has been difficult.
I call it knackeredness.
Love Debsxxx
Hi Jane, fatigue is at the moment the main side effect I get from chemo (Taxotere-avastin), the first week I can hardly walk, and I spend most of the time watching TV, unable to do anything else. This depresses me so much…it takes me a lot to recover (after nearly 4 years of chemo this is understandable), but when I recover I try to do things, I go to work (I do what I can), I go to the gym, go swimming, and even go skiing…the problem is that my muscles are very weak now, and I fall quite easily, that’s why I am trying to go to the gym, I don’t know whether it is helping.
so I don’t have any solution for fatigue, I just sit and wait, until I feel better, but it is getting very very difficult mentally.
Would something like royal jelly help?
Yes,fatigue is my main problem too.I find it quite debilitating.Mine started about a month after I finished Taxotere and has gradually become worse,especially now as I’m coming to the end of Xeloda too.
I still go to work,but only one or two days a week and definitely have to have a day in between of just doing nothing.
Alli x