Radiation/ Chemo Side effects

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rsarav321
rsarav321 Member Posts: 2
edited March 2014 in Colorectal Cancer #1
Dear All,

I am posting for my brother in law who was diagnosed with colon cancer stage 3c. He had a surgery done to remove part of the colon and had ostomy bags installed. He started his radiation therapy, which was for 25 sittings. The last sitting of the radiation happend after the first FOLFOX4 treatment spanning 2 days. After that, he starting having gradual pain in the abdomen area and after that 3 days it started becoming very bad and unbearable for him. The doctor said he most likely has infection in his intestines and started him on antobiotics and pain killers. He seems to be a bit better, but the pain (like a pull in the abdomen) comes back now and then. He is not able to eat anything at all.

Anyone had a similar experience? Any help/suggestions would be very much appreciated.

regards,

Sarav

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  • CherylHutch
    CherylHutch Member Posts: 1,375
    #2
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    Hi Sarav,
    I don't have any
    Hi Sarav,

    I don't have any experience with this and didn't have any pain during my 6 weeks of radiation, so I will let the others put their .25 worth in... but I did want to welcome you to the group and am glad you found us. This is a wonderful support board that usually has answers to almost everyone's questions.

    You didn't say when he started these antibiotics... it may be that he has to give them a bit longer to do their work since it usually takes a week or longer for antibiotics to start kicking in (depending on the kind of infection). I know when I was diagnosed in 12/06, the only reason I knew there was a problem is I had this ongoing pain in my left side. Turns out that it was an abscess encompassing the tumour which had perforated through the intestine, which in turn caused perotonitis (infection of the abdomen). I had to be put on IV antibiotics right away... not only did they have to get the infection under control, but they couldn't do surgery on the tumour until they had the infection under control. It took three weeks of heavy duty IV antibiotics before they had it to the point where they felt it was safe to do the surgery (by then, I had no more pain, so if it wasn't for the infection, I wouldn't have had any idea I had this hughmongous tumour).

    So, the reason I explained the above... if it's only been a couple of days, tell him to continue with the antibiotics as planned and keep in touch with the doctor. They will want him to go through the cycle of antibiotics they have given him ... and may give him another cycle of them if it doesn't appear to be completely cleared up.

    Hugggggs,

    Cheryl
  • kristasplace
    kristasplace Member Posts: 957 Member
    #3
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    Radiation
    Hi Sarav!

    First, let me start off by saying WELCOME! Secondly, radiation SUCKS! It caused me more problems than everything put together. I didn't have abdominal pains except for the crystalization and dead WBC's that caused blockage in my urethra, and the inability to pee. I had to be cathetered for that. I finished my chemoradiation treatments exactly one year ago this month, and i still have radiation cystitis, and burning urination. The other thing it caused was severe bone loss, osteoporosis, and soft bone problems. I would be curious to know how long ago his surgery was, and if they gave him adequate time to heal from that before starting rads. Radiation burns everything it touches, so everything in the direct line of his tumor is getting cooked, as are some of the things around it. I would have a serious talk with his radiation oncologist about it, and have him/her figure out what is causing the pain before i did another treatment. I got a little break from it when my bladder got cooked.

    Much luck with it!
    Krista

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