Side effects from chemotherapy often require a variety of treatments.
High-dose chemotherapy, because it destroys normal cells as well as cancer cells, has a wide range of side effects. Counseling gives advice to patients suffering bothersome minor symptoms, from loss of appetite to dry mouth, hair loss and mouth sores. More serious symptoms, such as chronic diarrhea and sleeplessness, often require medication, and radiation therapy can also be necessary if cancer cells persist. The Aptium Oncology Research Network is investigating whether acupuncture relieves chronic fatigue after chemotherapy.
Counseling and Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation is a must after chemotherapy, and counseling is often necessary to provide information on treating any minor side effects that occur.
The Cleveland Clinic counsels simple remedies, such as adding more spice to food to combat changes in taste sensations, drinking enough fluids to avoid a coated tongue or dizziness with position changes, frequent small meals to cope with loss of appetite, and rinsing the mouth and dunking foods in liquids before eating to avoid dry mouth. Living with mouth sores necessitates drinking liquids through a straw, avoiding hot and crunchy foods, gargling with a rinse of salt and baking soda and not eating acidic fruit or fruit juices.
Drug Therapy
Medications become necessary after chemotherapy for a number of conditions. Severe diarrhea more than two or three times a day might necessitate an anti-diarrheal medicine.
Insomnia is another side effect that might require medication if relaxation techniques do not bring on sleep.
Chemotherapy can cause the menstrual cycles in some women to stop, so hormone replacement therapy can be a treatment option.
According to a University of Rochester Medical Center study, modafinil (Provigil) can provide cognitive enhancement after chemotherapy.
Radiation Therapy
Blood, laboratory tests, X-rays and diagnostic studies might find that further cancer therapies are needed after chemotherapy. A chemotherapy patient's immune system and resistance to disease are low, and cancer can continue to gain a foothold in the body. Further cancer treatments can include surgery or radiation therapy.
Acupuncture
The Aptium Oncology Research Network is currently testing acupuncture as a means for treating chronic post-chemotherapy fatigue. The study was begun in Berkeley in 2008 and will be completed late in 2010.
The treatment consists of six weeks of acupuncture 60 days after the last chemotherapy session.
Ayurvedic medicine is an alternative medical treatment after chemotherapy. The panchakarrma and rasayana treatments are reported to detoxify the human body. They include oral medicines and helping the patient to recuperate from the side effects of chemotherapy in a phased manner. However, according to the National Institutes of Health, "Most clinical trials of Ayurvedic approaches have been small, had problems with research designs, lacked appropriate control groups, or had other issues that affected how meaningful the results were. Therefore, scientific evidence for the effectiveness of Ayurvedic practices varies, and more rigorous research is needed."
Tags: after chemotherapy, Aptium Oncology, Aptium Oncology Research, cancer cells, loss appetite, mouth sores