Need some advice on how to help hubby

sammy0345

Husband just had his second round of Chemo last week, first round was July 11 and he is on Herceptin, Taxol and Carboplatin plus he gets the neupogen shots for 10 days and man-o-man he is having a rough time. Three days after first chemo the muscle and bone aches, had pain pills for that and then 6 days after first chemo, bowel infection and spent 5 days in the hospital....pretty rough. He did fairly well after that but did lose his hair 2 weeks after first chemo.

Last week was second chemo and he does wear the frozen gloves for his hands/nails. My issue is the nausea, he has been throwing up for non-stop for days....we have tried everything, not sure what to do. Nothing stays down, everything he eats tastes terrible or rancid...taking him back to the hospital today, there has to be something. 

Moderators

Hi Sammy,

So sorry to hear your husband is going through such a rough time. The other members here will be sure to provide some great advice to help you both through it!

In the meantime, you may be interested in checking out the main Breastcancer.org site's pages on Nausea, Taste and Smell Changes, Eating When You Have Nausea and Vomiting, and Eating When You Have Changes in Your Sense of Taste and Smell.

Also, you might get a different perspective from the gentlemen on these boards in the Male Breast Cancer forum.

Hope this helps!

--The Mods

HLB

there are different nausea meds that work for different ppl> They need to try each one until they get one that works. When I took Taxol I thought things tasted weak and water down> Like i would be so hungry for pizza but then it would taste so plain and bland it wasnt worth it. Kind of like half the flavor was taken out of it. I ate a lot of dill pickles to get some strong taste in my mouth.

leggo

I can so relate to your post. I threw up until my esophagus bled. They tried numerous meds. The only combo that ended up working was Zofran combined with those little discs you put behind your ears to prevent motion sickness. It never totally went away, but did help. I drank a lot of ginger-ale too (The kind you get at the health food store, not the pop). On occasion, I managed to keep a smoothie down made of sherbert, protien powder and frozen berries (fresh ones didn't work so well). So sorry your husband is going through this. Some breeze through without any nausea and some end up sicker than a dog. Good luck to your husband and I hope you can stumble onto something that works.

About the taste thing, everything tasted like crap, but I found that popsicles froze my mouth enough to get something to pass over my taste buds. Also, the rancid taste could be from thrush....is his tongue white? They have a special mouthwash for that...can't remember the name of it off hand, but the onc will know.

msphil

nothing taste good during my treatment,I had mouth sores which didn,t help any, and on treatment days I only could eat soup, that is what tasted ok,I didn,t throw up that much until near the end of treatment, weird ? different people use different things try several till he can handle things. msphil(idc,stage2, 3  nodes, Lmast and chemo and rads and 5 yrs on Tamoxifen God Bless Us ALL>