first high dose cisplatin treatment today

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ricksmithgolfer
ricksmithgolfer Member Posts: 87 Member
in Head and Neck Cancer #1

Had my first high dose treatment of Cisplatin today in addition to the nornal radiation. All the support staff at UC San Diego Cancer Center were wonderful. I was well taken care of. All went very well and I currently feel fine 4hours after treatment ended. I did tske 1 1/2 mg of Activin after treatment because I still had to do radiation. We will see how I feel after the Activin wears off. I'm all set with 3 different medications for the nausea that may happen. Start taking one in the morning and early afternoom. If those do not work I have 2 others to try.

 

Has anyone been asked to do a Barium xray swallow test at the beggining of your thereapy to create a baseline study. My clinic is having me do that even though all my swallowing snd speech functions checked out great. Seems to me this test should be used for people that are already having swallowing problems. Any thoughts out there?

Rick

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  • debbiel0
    debbiel0 Member Posts: 134 Member
    edited August 2018 #2
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    Ok, first one done!  You will

    Ok, first one done!  You will be done before you know it. 

    It is wise to get a swallow test done for a baseline. I did not have one early but it would have been beneficial if I had. 

    I had a great team at the treatment center,  then a follow up team in my home town. My local therapist thought a pre-treatment test would have been helpful to determine my old normal vs my new normal.   Good for your therapist to want a baseline. It is an easy painless test. I have had three post treatment to ensure there are no blockages and that everthing is working as it should.

    I would also recommend a hearing test now. I have some hearing loss/ changes since treatment and it is difficult to explain. I had a hearing test after treatment and another one scheduled for one year later to see if there has been improvement. It would have been wise to have that baseline as well.

    Good luck with the rest of your journey. 

    Do your swallowing exercises!

    Deb

  • johnsonbl
    johnsonbl Member Posts: 266 Member
    #3
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    I didn't have one pre-treatment...

    Though my speech therapist wondered why she didn't order one before.  As debbie said, it's just to get a baseline from before treatment to after...  You will likely end up with changes in how your tongue, jaw and swallowing all work after treatment and you'll do another one of these after.  They can then compare to see what's going on.  It's not a big deal...you eat and drink some stuff that tastes like crap and they watch it go down and record the whole thing.  Kind of cool really.  

    Mine took a half hour, tops.

     

    Brandon

  • ricksmithgolfer
    ricksmithgolfer Member Posts: 87 Member
    edited August 2018 #4
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    debbiel0 said:

    Ok, first one done!  You will

    Ok, first one done!  You will be done before you know it. 

    It is wise to get a swallow test done for a baseline. I did not have one early but it would have been beneficial if I had. 

    I had a great team at the treatment center,  then a follow up team in my home town. My local therapist thought a pre-treatment test would have been helpful to determine my old normal vs my new normal.   Good for your therapist to want a baseline. It is an easy painless test. I have had three post treatment to ensure there are no blockages and that everthing is working as it should.

    I would also recommend a hearing test now. I have some hearing loss/ changes since treatment and it is difficult to explain. I had a hearing test after treatment and another one scheduled for one year later to see if there has been improvement. It would have been wise to have that baseline as well.

    Good luck with the rest of your journey. 

    Do your swallowing exercises!

    Deb

    hearing test

    Thanks for your reply. I did have a baseline hearing test already and will be required  to do another right before my next infusion so the doctor can see if I have any hearing issues developing. My Onocologist at UCSanDieo cancer center is very good and I have had all the needed tests to make sure I was up to doing the high dose Cisplatin drug. Also had an Echocardigram for the heart and it came back excellent.

    This morning after my infusion yesterday that took 6 hours I am feeling fine. Starting taking the nausea pills a few hours ago and still no nausea feelings yet. Hopefully that will continue. Have radiation today at 11 am and then off to get the Barium xray swallow test at 4 pm. Already doing the swallowing excercises, neck excercises and for good measure purchasd the Therabite tool for jaw stretching excercies. May be an overkill but I do not want to get Trismus if posible. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. God Bless.

    Rick

  • ricksmithgolfer
    ricksmithgolfer Member Posts: 87 Member
    #5
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    johnsonbl said:

    I didn't have one pre-treatment...

    Though my speech therapist wondered why she didn't order one before.  As debbie said, it's just to get a baseline from before treatment to after...  You will likely end up with changes in how your tongue, jaw and swallowing all work after treatment and you'll do another one of these after.  They can then compare to see what's going on.  It's not a big deal...you eat and drink some stuff that tastes like crap and they watch it go down and record the whole thing.  Kind of cool really.  

    Mine took a half hour, tops.

     

    Brandon

    swallow test

    Thanks Brandon. God Bless.

  • MGC
    MGC Member Posts: 72 Member
    #6
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    Swallow Test

    I never had a pretreatment swallow test and I really don’t think they are needed unless you have some sort of issues with swallowing. Later down the road, well that’s a different story. Most important is hearing baseline pre-treatment. The cisplatin smoked my hearing. I was supposed to get 3 treatments but ended up only getting 2 because of the hearing damage. Did the 35 rads though.  8 years later I do swallow tests annually or more as I am having lots of other issues from the rads. Not a lot they can do for the damage caused by rads so be prepared. My tongue is jacked, epiglottis does not function, and the soft pallet does not work either. So, in other words, eating is a pain in the you know what, but other than that I feel great!!

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