Icing hands and feet to reduce nerualgia during TCHP

Anonymous

Icing hands and feet to reduce nerualgia during TCHP

StillNotGinger

First off - hello! I'll put my diagnosis and treatment plan at the end of my post. I didn't want to TLDR you all on my first post. I also did search the forum, but I can't find specifics on this.

editing this to add that I just found out that I'm starting tomorrow morning.

My mom had cancer many years ago. Herceptin was new. She doesn't remember the other medications she took. She has permanent nerve damage in her hands, but mainly her feet. She has had so many falls because of that. My CO thinks that means I'm more likely to get nerve damage. He was happy that I brought up icing. He was going to suggest it. He says you can go buy a bunch of fancy wraps, but that ice buckets are just as effective.

I know Toxotere is the worst culprit. However, neuropathy is listed as a severe side effect for Carboplatin and Pergeta. How will this all work? I know 15 minutes before Toxotere is optimal and you should do ice for 30 minutes afterwards. But am I going to have to ice for everything except Herceptin? How do you set up the ice buckets? Do you put super thin socks over your feet and then plastic bags? Do you just put your feet & hands straight in? Do you put them in and then take them out for breaks. I have no idea how this is all going to work. Am I going to save myself from cancer neuropathy simply because my feet and hands are going to freeze off 😀 I've got a warm hat and fleece to bring with me.

HISTORY: Got early stage one in 2013. Lumpectomy & Radiation. ER+PR+HER2- I've been clear ever since. Got a wonderful surprise in 2016 - I have a 5 year old daughter now. My mammogram this year got put off because of the insanity around the pandemic. I am so glad I pushed it as soon as the breast cancer center reopened. Mammogram & Ultrasound on Friday 13. ( for real). Biopsy was done the following Monday. I had a CT/Bone scan the following Monday.

I managed to get a freaking different kind of cancer. ER+ (but barely) PR - Her2+. Met with my CO the following Tuesday. I have tiny nodules on my lungs. The entire cancer unit docs meet up on Fridays and go over certain cases. None of them think it's cancer, but there's no way to be sure. They're too small to biopsy. Cancer stage is anywhere from 2-4. They're going after it with THCP to see what happens, and then hopefully I'll be able to have both of these suckers removed. I'll need a Flap on one side. Got my port implanted yesterday at the advice of friends.

moth

You can buy booties and gloves filled with gel and pre-freeze them & bring them in a cooler. A cheaper option is just regular gel icepacks. I put up pictures of how I do it on this thread (it's stage 4 forum only but you can read, just not post). Put everything in deep freeze at least 12 hrs or more beforehand and I bring it all in a hard sided cooler which I roll on a luggage trolley thing. I have hard ice packs inside the cooler to keep my gel packs super cold. https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topics/...

good luck with it all!

Anonymous

If you'd like to buy the slippers, the brand name is NatraCure and they're available on Amazon and the company's own website.

StillNotGinger

Thank you. I just found out I start tomorrow.

Anonymous

Best of luck with your treatment! Hope Day One goes well.

MinusTwo

StillNot - just saw this so you've probably started. I used frozen peas in zip lock bags. They work well but need to be changed 1/2 through if you're doing 30 min before & after. The nurses kept my 2nd set in their freezer for me.

Oh - and what a treat it was to throw away those darn peas after six rounds of chemo.

Aram

StillNotGinger, I got gloves and socks with icing gels at the beginning. The issue was they didn't stay cold for the whole time. So I also brought blue ice packs to put under my feet to prevent the gel from becoming warm. For my hands, the gel got warm much faster so i didn't bother with them and held ice packs with gloves on. Then somebody mentioned they hold a frozen bottle of water so I got the idea of replacing the hand gels with two bottles of water, one for each hand, and that worked perfect.

AMG2

I've just done my second taxol plus herceptin yesterday. My first round was pretty bad, and even though I iced both hands and feet, still had numbness and tingling in both most of the week.

Others here have indicated glutamine, 30 grams (yes grams) per day, powder mixed in a protein drink would be beneficial, which I started doing at some point last week. Reading up on it, apparently tumors love glutamine and deplete you of it over time. Anyway, this week, with glutamine on board, and me digging my fingers and toes into the gel in my ice gloves and socks, and chilling everything to the point it hurt for a while, I have no neuropathy this week. I think it's the combo of glutamine and ice.

Very best of luck to you. Take care and pls let us know how it goes if you are up for it.

Edit to add: yes the week is still young, but the neuropathy started in the car on the way home from infusion last week, and was awful by the next day.