Question on White Cell Counts Shots

Dear Simmonsg
I am not sure what shot you are taking. I had daily Nuprigen ( im sure I spelled it wrong) while I was on A/C. I had four rounds of it (one every 21 days) then was switched to something else.

The only side effect I had from the daily Nup (that is what the nurces called it for short) shot was aching joints, felt much like the flu where everything is achy and sore. I started out driviing to the doctor every day -then decided I could do this "shot thing" at home. I just remember the thing would sting - like a bee or wasp sting, and the aching in my joints. I dont remember getting nausea from it, but then again I could not have told you if the chemo or the nuprigen was making me sick to stomach?

To be honest with you, now I can go INTO the doctors office and just SMELL that "doctor office smell" and be sick to my stomach, Im sure it is just in my head, you know just connected with the bad memory of all those months of chemo, but the nausea is real all the same.

Much luck and God Bless you.
Jerilyn

Yes I gave myself neupogen shots after each treatment. But doctor found very difficult to regulate. I shot up several times to white counts of over 40,000. Then other times it was as low as 600. As for the nausea that got a lot better after finished 4 rounds of FAC. The thing that bothered me with taxotere was that I lost all taste for several weeks after each treatment. Literally nothing had any taste. So I lost all interest in food during that time and that was during the Thanksgiving and Xmas holidays. Well I sure didnt need to worry about weight gain then. But everything comes to an end and feeling great now.My last chemo was january 20. Hang in there, before you know it you will be finished. Good luck to you.

There are many medications available for nausea. The one that was originally prescribed for me was Compazine, which did absolutely nothing. Nausea interferes with your ability to live comfortably and it causes stress in your life. Call the doctor up and explain that the medication prescribed for you does not alleviate your horrific nausea and tell the doctor you want an effective medication to manage it properly. I have come to believe that if the oncologist were on Adriamycin and Cytoxan and developed the kind of nausea associated with same, the oncologist would not even consider a trial period of Compazine. This is an important issue; you ought to be able to live as comfortably as possible. Hugs, Denise

Wow! I am really surprised at the number of people who received Neupogen and Neulasta injections as a matter of routine after each chemo IV. Maybe there was a part I missed on the other posts...but my doctor gave me my A/C chemo every 3-4 weeks. I had to have a CBC blood test every single Monday and I never got Neupogen unless he really thought I needed it. Neupogen and Neulasta (sp) are related products, Neulasta being twice as expensive as Neupogen. I understand they are growth hormones that make your bone marrow produce more white cells. However, these products can cause dangerous side effects in themselves and that is why my oncologist says he tries to be as conservative as possible in their use. My husband is a researcher at a pharmaceutical company and he had mentioned how closely my oncologist was fine-tuning my dosages of medications. Maybe more people are doing the dense-dose A/C where you just can't do A/C chemo every two weeks without automatically also getting Neupogen every two weeks. That has got to be what is going on!

My doctor doesn't believe in the shots;he believes that body should recoup on its own.
I hope he knows what he's doing.