It's Game Time!!

Sundanceh said:

Melissa
Well, before I blow sunshine up your tailpipe, here's a litte heads up....

First, who knows what a normal routine is with chemo anymore? The 'norm' is every 2 weeks over a 6-month period. But, the extra week could be a blessing in disguise for you. If that's the way they want to go, I'd ride with it.

Folfiri was very harsh on me. I won't go into it, 'cause I don't want to dent your enthusiasm and I'm sure you'll do better than me. After 51x, my body reacted differently than a nice young body like yours will. There is fatigue and nausea, diarrhea for some but that was not a huge issue for me. It was just a tough treatment for me.

Switch from Pump to Xeloda? Your body will tell you this. Having done both, I like the pump despite it's inconveinences. First, because it's covered by the medical plan and Xeloda is a prescription medication, which will mean a co-pay.

I found Xeloda to be very hard on my stomach. And it wrecked my feet so bad that I could not hardly stand or walk in shoes after several months. Of course, the doctors told me nothing to expect.

There might be huge blistering or peeling of your feet as the toxicity builds up in your body from the Xeloda. I was doing 4000 mg a day / 8 pills. Originally started on the 14 on / 7 off program.

But, when it got so bad, we switched and did 7 on / 7 off and that seemed to be just as effective and somewhat easier.

Your fingertips will probably turn a brighter red and could get irritated like with typing or trying to open bottles, tie your shoes etc.etc. Or, you might have good dexterity and be ok there.

But the feet is where you've got to watch. Go buy a tin of Bag Balm. Smear it all over your feet and then put socks on over that to keep in the moisture. Do this 3x a day at least, morning, evening and before bedtime. Jump on it from the start and I think you'll head off the problems that I had.

My doctor told me nothing. That's why I stay here on this board, Melissa. To give folks like you the head up that I never got.

You can take a variety of things for nausea. The pills just ate my guts up. I found sometimes some milk would coat the lining and sort of allievate the aggravation.

They may start you off on 4000 mgs a day, but could move you down to 3000 if you have a hard time with it.

Ok, "gametime" as you say. Get in there and chase it down. All the best of luck with this new treatment. I hope you do well with this regimen.

-Craig (woops, I mean Rock)

keystone said:

My husband was on a very
My husband was on a very high dose of xeloda along with his radiation pre-surgery. He now is on 5-FU. The xeloda was very hard on him as far as nausea until we researched and found that folic acid increased side effects. The US fortifies all breads, pastas and cerials (especially cerials) with folic (folate). The day after pulling so much of this from his diet he was a new person. I have shared this with others on here with the same results. He did not have the foot and mouth and his oncologist was surprised since of his dosage (3600 mg every day for 6 weeks straight yikes!) Hope this helps out! Good luck sweetie! Stephanie

tanstaafl said:

pulling folate out
My wife has done much better by systemically eliminating synthetic folate in the food supply (bread, flour, pasta etc). Before the toxicity could build up over a few months.

We have to mix our own vitamin forumla to avoid the standard synthetic folate. She has to use leucovorin (calcium folinate), closer to natural B9, with her UFT oral chemo to be effective. Also she takes the PSK to build up her WBC, RBC, platelet blood parameters.