taxol, pain and numbness

Teresa,

I will be having my second round of taxol and herceptin tomorrow. I had the numbness in my toes and fingers, but not in my lips and tongue. Maybe that comes with the second treatment. I guess I will find out. I do experience alot of pain though. I am going to ask my doctor tomorrow what he can give me for the pain and I will let you know what he recommends and if it works. Also, please let me know if you find anything that alleviates the pain. Good luck to you and hang in there.

Dear Teresa,
I was given Taxol in Oct. 98. I was told to take Tylenol for the pain which did absolutely nothing. Fortunately I had some Vicoden left over from my summer surgery. My doctor allowed me to take it. My hands and feet stayed swollen for 10 days and I could hardly walk. I got a second opinion on what would happen if I stopped the Taxol. I had already gotten 4 A/C. Everyone agreed that I did not have to continue, that the A/C did most of the "work". I still experience tingling in my hands and feet, especially at night. Since it remained after 18 months from the original infusion, doctors tell me it won't get any better. Fortunately only about 5% of the Taxol patients get this severe side effect. You have to decide for yourself on weighing the benefit. I proceeded with radiation and am now on Tamoxifen.
Margaret

Hi Teresak
I am new also to the group, having signed up late last week. I too had Taxol, mine was combined with CarboPlatain. Let me regress(also see my personal page for my cancer history-thi is #3)In June 200 I began 6 treatments one every three weeks of Taxotere.
got thru this fairly well in between treatments. Then just as I was going to Las Vegas for my Victory celebration I became worse in my breathing and strength.The pain was worse in my ribs and chest than before the Taxotere. so it was decided that I would have to have more Chemo and they decided on the 2 above combined. Well as it happened , the Taxotere had damaged my heart. there was a slight reduction in it's ability to squeeze the blood. My heart Dr. decided taht I should be admitted to hospital. He wasn't sure what the Taxol and Carbo combined would do to my heart. I was NEVER so glad to be in a hospital in my life, I was in sooo much pain. so on 1/29 I was admitted and the next day got the Chemo. It took 9 hours. Didn't have many side effects while I was in the hospital because I was on morphine every 2 hours so the pain wouldn't get ahold of me. But the minute I went home OH MY GOD, THE PAIN.This was the WORST pain I have EVER experienced including when I had the upper left lobe of my Lung removed.I have had at least 19 surgeries and had Spinal Meningitisis 4 times, so you know I have had some kind of pain during my lefetime. But this was the worst. It lasted intensely for 10 days and on day 11 I woke up and realized the pain had eased up. I stood in the shower for the first time in a long time and cried for over 20 minutes and thanking Jesus the pain had let up.The Taxol combo had eased up themasssive pain in my ribs side and back so 10 days later I had to take another treatment, this time at the Drs clinic. This time I got slightly alleric to the Taxol as it started making my spine hurt. I advised the nurse that the material said this was an allergic reaction , plus Taxol was making my stomach hurt sooo bad. she did stop the Chemo for about 10 minutes because I was about to pass out from the stomach pain. Unfortunately my stomach was empty, but they had given me 2 150mg AXID BEFORE the treatment. I then had 8 days of a different kind of pain from this 2nd treatment. The vomitting was horrible which in turn when I threw up or even thought about it, well it hurt my tumor area like there was a big ball of hot something right under my ribs and in my breast.
Teresak I can't imagine how you are handling your pain with just the ibuprofen you mentioned.You are entitled to be fairly free of any pain. Will they not give you morphine? I have and take the following: Morphine patch called Duregisic, I am currently on 75mg but tomorrow I will pick up the 100mg patches because the 75mg is not holding it.
I also take for "breakthrough pain", the following medicines: 1)Talwin, a synthetic narcotic I can take as many as 3 at a time, which I am doing, plus 2)Soma which is a muscle relaxer ( I had been taking these 2 for several years) 3) Morphine Sulfate 30 mg 1-2 every 4 hrs. as needed. This is called my short term morphine plus I add OTC Advil because it helps and goes straight to the source of the pain. So every three or four hours I am taking 3 Talwin, 1Soma, 1Advil. When it is extremely bad in between I take 1 or 2 morphine pills. Of course after about 45 minutes I get sleepy and fall forward into a deep sleep but I need the rest anyway since I cannot sleep but 1 1/2 hrs at a time, so these naps help(except when I fall face down in my plate of food.
See every time I breathe I have pain and coughing is out of the question, it really rips me up.Sorry Ihave written so much but what city do you live in that the Drs. won't control a cancer patients pain I believe there was a law passed that cancer patients must be kept as free of pain as they can. I live in Indianapolis and when I went into the hospital all the nurses and Drs were very interested in controlling my pain.Offering me all kinds of pain killers Please check out these and /or other pain killers you are entiltiled to s certain level of comfort of pain. Please let me know what you think and if this helped.
Hand in there!! Oh by the way I refused the 3rd treatment of Taxol because it had ravished my body so. I was so weak , bald head, calves swollen and had went from a size 12 to a size 4 or 6 that quick. I told the Dr. I needed to get some strength back first and give my body a chance to recoup and that's where I am now. recouping.The 3rd treatment was due 3/12 and I was on the way to feeling better when he wanted me to take the anticancer drug Megace, which made it difficult to breathe and sent my heart racing.I stopped it on 3/27.
Please let me know.

Dear teresak,
I was treated with 3 24hr. infusions of taxol in Oct/Nov 98. All of my chemo was extremely high dose. The taxol was the hardest for me to deal with....in fact, I'm still dealing with numbness and aching joints and muscles. My onc put me on OxyIR and OxyContin.....they worked wonders. I tried a lot of other meds first, but none of them worked like these. Talk to your onc about trying them. Good Luck.