AC Chemo

Lauraleigh16

Hey everyone, I had my first AC chemo last Wednesday 3/23, followed by the Neulasta on Thursday. I have been sleeping pretty much all day and night yesterday and Friday. Is that normal? I wake up and I am still tired and can barely keep my eyes open. I am still feeling like crap, No throwing up.

Maya15

Hi Laura,

Sounds normal, it was the same for me on AC. Slept all day and all night for the first few days. But on day 5 I woke up with near normal energy levels and was able to do most of my normal activities for the next 10 days. It was the same for each round of AC so after the first one I knew I would be totally knocked out for the first 4 days. Hope you feel less tired soon

Lauraleigh16

Thank you. I find myself falling asleep and napping when i just wake up. I wasn't sure if I was doing something wrong or if that was normal. I hate not being able to do anything or even getting out of the house. I am praying this passes soon because this sucks!!

avmom

Hi Laura,

I also had the "hit by a truck" fatigue after AC. Everyone is different, so don't worry about whether your reaction is "normal". Listen to your body, and do what you can. If you can manage any physical activity at all, that may help. I tried to walk every day, but some days my "walk" was very short. (Like maybe a couple hundred yards short.). Other days I was able to do better, but there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to which days were which. There are many, many side effects to these treatments, and perhaps the only certainty is that you will have some, but not all of them. My fatigue usually kicked in hard on about day 4, after the steroids wore off. I always had a tiny bit of artificial energy from the dexamethasone but that was gone by day 4. Hooray for no nausea!!

Kicks

There is no 'normal'/usual' that everyone will experience - we are each unique and our bodies react differently. For some of us one Chemo is 'worse' than another - for some of us Taxol is 'easy', for some it is 'hard; for some of us A/C is ' easy' but Taxol is 'hard'.

For me, neoadjuvant A/C was easy - did not slow me down at all; the 12 weekly adjuvant Taxol left me completely and utterly EXHAUSTED the entire time (I just existed those 12 weeks on the couch (or on the bed) watching TV and trying to sleep.

reflect

Sounds familiar to me. Drink lots of water and take the anti nausea meds before you need them. Sleep. You might want to check out the March 2016 Chemo thread where others will be in the same "place" as you are. Good luck! (They don't call Adriamycin the Red Devil for nothing)