Question about Vomiting and Nausea after Chemo

Hi ToughMama49,

Sorry to hear about your mom, that sounds very uncomfortable for her. I don't know if my experience will help any, since I only experienced nausea and not vomiting, and thus I was able to eat solid foods, but I found that eating a few bites of sweet potato really reduced my nausea when combined with Zofran. However, obviously if someone is vomiting and can't eat solid foods, then this may not be a good idea - I don't know what the medical recommendation is when someone has vomiting, so please don't take my experience as a recommendation. For me, though, Zofran (anti-nausea med) just wasn't enough by itself. Even at the maximum dose, I had intense nausea, so that's why I went looking for other forms of relief. I complained to everyone (nurses, doctors) that my nausea was intense enough that I was gagging and miserable for several days after treatment, and it seemed to me from their responses that there was not a whole lot they could do if my nausea exceeded the medication's ability to relieve nausea. It really sucked. I did find another thing that worked for me, though, and that was to sit barefoot on the grass for about an hour - I happened to be reading a book on "earthing" and it seemed to help people with a variety of health complaints so I decided to try it for nausea and it definitely made me feel better. I'm sure there are other things out there, as well, but those were the two I found that worked for me.

Hope your mom feels better!

Best,

Monica

Hi ToughMama and welcome to Breastcancer.org,

We're so sorry to hear your mom is experiencing these very unpleasant side effects. While you wait for some more helpful responses from our other members, you may want to check out the following main Breastcancer.org site's pages for some tips:

• Treatment Side Effects: Nausea
• Treatment Side Effects: Vomiting
• Eating When You Have Nausea and Vomiting

We hope this helps and we look forward to hearing more from you soon!

--The Mods

Agree. There are plenty of really good meds that will control nausea & vomiting. Special listed several.

I also agree about additional saline infusions so she doesn't get dehydrated. I had diarrhea instead of vomiting, but I went between every treatment for saline infusions.

The goal is to prevent nausea, treating it after it happens is more difficult and often does not work. Knowing her propensity for nausea/vomiting she needs to take these drugs prophylactically, most probably starting the evening of the same day as chemo, in order to prevent the onset of nausea. This was my instruction so that I had protection when the pre-med for nausea given by IV at the time of chemo wears off. I disagree with her oncologist - nausea is pretty common, but she should not be vomiting - there are a plethora of drugs available and she should be given another if the first one does not work. I came home with 3 different drugs, Zofran, Compazine, and Ativan, to try in that order. The Zofran was totally ineffective and it gave me a wicked headache, but the Compazine worked like a charm. After the first bout of nausea and vomiting after my first infusion I stayed with the Compazine and had no further problems, I never needed to take the Ativan. It is often a case of trying different meds to see which one works, but she should not be suffering like this. With many of these meds you can take them on top of each other if the first is ineffective, because they work by differing mechanisms. For more intractable nausea/vomiting she may require a time-release patch like Sancuso so she has better prevention. And by all means, bring her back for fluids on successive days - with each chemo infusion - this is a common practice,and she needs to remain hydrated. Drinking fluids and eating small bland snacks throughout the day helps also. Good luck!

ToughMama49, it sounds like it's time for ToughDaughter* to insist on better management of this nausea and vomiting. SpecialK has given you lots of good detailed info. Now if the doctor tries to brush you off, you must not take no for an answer. If necessary go above his/her head to the head of the department or whatever. Maybe there is a patient advocate or another doctor who will assist. Maybe your insurance company could help (they don't want to pay for complications from dehydration). Don't accept "we'll call you within 48 hours" either. Tell them your mom is suffering and is in danger of dehydration and needs help now. Be concrete, telling them exactly how many times she has vomited in the last x hours, exactly what she has or hasn't been able to drink or eat, etc. In case you can't tell, I'm hopping mad right now that the doctor has let this go on without offering more help.

*or ToughSon (I can't tell which you are.)

Short-term fasting before and after chemo results in significant reduction of side effects.

Here's the research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2815756/

Good luck!

Your poor mom! I just finished my chemo and nausea and vomiting were my biggest fear going in as I'm a puker! Thank God I had no nausea at all. My MO had my take zyprexa for 4 days beginning on chemo day for the AC part. I was able to cut back on that as it worked great but made me very sleepy. Also steroid, Emend and Zofran in my pre-chemo meds. For the taxol part I just had the I've zofran. Keep after the doctor. They need to try everything they can to make her comfortable.

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents...

Hope they help her and the next round is better

I can't imagine my oncologist and team being so nonchalant about vomiting and nausea. Yes, while they are expected SEs, it would be totally unacceptable to me if someone didn't try moving heaven and earth to try to fix them. There is a long list of medications and other solutions (including medical marijuana which works particularly well for nausea). I would ask for a referral to Outpatient Palliative Care. Palliative Care is often confused with Hospice Care--but it is different. They work as a team (in my case a nurse practitioner and two MD's) who specialize in managing side effects related to chemo and cancer. I had problems with my GI tract that got totally resolved this time by careful monitoring. Indeed, there were checking in with me to see how I was doing and tweeked the meds based on my symptoms. If you can't get a Palliative Care Team, then I would demand a second opinion on her condition and to see what can be done. She is so fortunate to have you. And I hope you are able to come up with a solution quickly.