Taxol and Nails

Lovemygrden - totally unconnected to the subject of this post!! 

But do you know Murphy's Law of Out Patient Visits??? 

"If you do not bring an overnight bag with you to an out patient appointment you WILL be admitted" Corollary "if you arrive bag at the ready you will not be admitted, infact on occassion when an admission has been planned and acted on you will be discharged just as soon as you realise that no one is available to collect you!!!!"

I'm sure others have many similar examples!!

krcll, did you use the Elastogel mitts and booties?

krcll, you are probably right about Aimn's post -- the exclamation points "threw me off", so sorry! (edit coming up)

It's interesting that you;re in Norway because I was told by the company that I bought my Elastogels from, that oncologists in Europe use them far more extensively than oncs in the USA do. I personally suspect that there are 3 reasons why, all characteristic of the USA but not Europe:

(1) The nature of our healthcare system (insurance companies unwilling to pay for their purchase or use; as we all know, they grab any excuse to avoid paying for something and these are expensive... about $115 per pair)

(2) Fear of malpractice lawsuits (the oncs here may not want to risk a patient suing them years later if they should ever have mets that could be even remotely attributed to the use of the "cooling")

(3) Oncologists in Europe tend to focus equally on quality-of-life issues as on the treatment of the disease,  but most of our oncs have the attitude of "focus on treating the disease, and deal with any SEs after they occur." Another example of the woeful lack of emphasis on prevention in the USA.

Lovemygarden - sorry if I appeared rude - as krcll said I did mean that it was my post was totally unrelated to the thread (so I guess my manners - and use of exclamation marks - are in question:-)) - it was just that your Murphy's Law made me laugh and I wanted to let you know I appreciated it, but typically I messed it up - so sorry!!! And I was the cause of you having to edit (perhaps it's best I didn't see the post - LOL.) 

To redeem myself let me say that my onc or his team never told me about nails being affected and the nails on both my big toes lifted and although they did not actually fall off new nails grew beneath them - it's actually quite awkward - at this stage the old nails are about halfway up the nail bed and I can't wait for them to 'grow' off!!!

I did weekly x 12 Taxol and had no issues with my fingernails, my Chemo centre uses ice gloves for Taxotere but not Taxol.

Towards the end of the Taxol one of my big toenail lifted and I developed an infection which oozed smelly stuff for weeks, I had oral antibiotics but not convinced they helped much. 6 months post Chemo as the nail was gorwing out I developed another infection, my Onc offered me antibiotics again but I didn't end up taking them and it did get better after a few weeks - well took about 10 weeks!

I did get numb finger tips and sore feet with the Taxol, finger tips resolved quicky once I finished, but feet still painfull 8 months later.

I thought that Taxol was hard on veins and so was administered through a port in the chest or arm. So it is surprising to hear your treatments were through an IV in the hand. and not through a port.  Or were they unable to install a port owing to your difficult veins? Can you tell us why?

Also, your experience provides us with a classic comparison between an experiment (the left hand with the mitt) and a control (the right hand without a mitt).  Although I suppose there is also the consideration that the IV was in the right hand.