Panitumumab- My Experience

There have been some questions about this so I thought I'd start a post to tell what it's like to be on it. It's an immunotherapy chemo that won't work for everyone, your colon cancer has to be vulnerable to it. I'm on it for the second time now so I thought I'd share what it's been like so far. 

Both times it took about  8 or 9 days for the rash to show up. The chemo seeks out a protein that is in the cancer cells and tells the body to fight it. One of the biggest poroblems with cancer is that the body doesn't recognise it as something to be dealt with so it doesn't fight it off. The protein is also in the skin cells of the head and upper torso as well as soft tissue areas. So while it's fighting the cancer, it also gives me a rash.

The rash looks like acne but behaves a little differently. It doesn't feel like anything, maybe a bit itchy. They gave me a cream to use to help soothe it. It shows up inside the ears, inside the mouth, behind my knees and covers my entire crotch area from front to back. These areas burn and get quite irritated. Going to the bathroom is pretty painful due to the burning. For me, my colon gets irritated frequently due to not being used and drains mucous and blood. On the chemo it drains much more and I can have accidents if I don't wear a maxi pad. It will wake me up at night to go to the bathroom a number of times as well. Because of the inflammation and being on blood thinners I get slight nosebleeds because the lining of my nose is so irritated. 

My skin tends to peel also. And the tiny scabs from the rash fall off. It's nasty and can make my bed feel like there's sand in it.

My mouth tastes like chemicals all the time after about the second week, even shortly after I've brushed my teeth. It changes the taste of food and drinks and because there's also nausea it makes it pretty tough to eat. I get canker sores and even get tiny ones sometimes between my teeth.

Three weeks in my sense of smell skyrocketed. This also makes it very hard to eat because things are too strong smelling and smell yucky. My husband had Vietnamese food last night, which I love, and I had to go in the bedroom and shut the door until the smell went away because I felt like I was going to be sick. I'm very careful that our dogs never smell 'doggy' but right now they stink to me. Everything stinks. And makes me feel sick.

It also makes you sun sensitive. To the point where a couple of days after starting it I was riding in the car and the sun was coming through the car windows and it felt like it was burning me. This is a few weeks ago and we still have winter. Last summer I attended an outdoor wedding and burnt my scalp.

Another fun fact. You can get what they call hand and foot syndrome. Makes sure to keep your hands and feet hydrated with hand/foot cream. My heels are just starting to crack and it's going to hurt if I let them actually get that bad.

I am on antibiotics because last time I was on this chemo I ended up in the hospital with sepsis due to my colon getting so irritated it allowed bacteria to escape and enter my bloodstream. I was supposed to have 6 treatments but had the sepsis after 4 so it was stopped but it did shrink my mets quite a bit and brought my CEA way down. So I do think this is a good chemo but, like all of them, it has side effects that are unpleasant. I feel like crap right now but I'd take this over Folfox any day.

I hope this helps anyone who may go on this in the future! Good luck!

Jan