AC plus weekly Taxol--what's your experience?

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CIW
CIW Member Posts: 76
edited October 2017 in Chemotherapy - Before, During, and After

Hey everyone! I have currently finished 2 of 4 rounds of DD AC chemo and will begin 12 weekly taxol treatments after that. AC has been dreadful for me. I get SEVERE lower abdominal pain, extreme fatigue, and nausea/vomiting that lasts the whole two weeks...plus the other standard side effects. I know chemo affects everyone differently and some people only experience AC side effects for 3-5 days, but I experience varying degrees of them the whole time and am pretty sick for at least 9 of the 14 days. I also have late-stage neurological lyme disease which already gives me a lot of fatigue, weakness/faintness, neuropathy, and immunosuppression. It may be partially why AC chemo is so harsh on my body (since my body is already fighting another illness and my side effects are an accumulation of both things).

Anywho, I did not come on here to whine about all this, but rather to ask: has anyone else gotten their butt totally kicked by AC chemo but done okay with the weekly Taxol? Was your AC chemo cumulative? How about your taxol?

I graduate nursing school this December and come h*ll or high water I am determined to finish. I am just hoping it will get easier with the taxol :-)

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  • PauletteK
    PauletteK Member Posts: 2,205
    edited October 2017

    CIW - you have two battles going at the same time! That’s a lots to handle, I’m suprirsed your MO didn’t let you get well before chemo? My bad ac days were 4-8 then things are going uphills. I heard someone talked about patches for nausea, you should talk to your MO about the abdominal pain, was it cause by constipation??

    Taxol to me is another ballgame, fatigue for me only a day, infusion night no sleep, stomach gas, neuropathy, dryness for the whole body, then I worried about joints pains are coming.


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  • CIW
    CIW Member Posts: 76
    edited October 2017

    I called my MO about the abdominal pain and since they couldn't explain it, I felt like they didn't take me seriously. It was disappointing. It's not from constipation, diet, etc. I think part of my large intestine is inflamed and anytime anything moves down there in that area I get horrible pain. Like it's not normal. It started after the first round and got so much worse after the second round, so I am honestly scared for this third round. I can handle a whole lot of symptoms, but when I get shooting pains that are so awful I can't even speak I feel like that can't be right. They don't want to do a colonoscopy unless absolutely necessary bc apparently it's risky to do during chemo. I'm not sure what to do about it.

    Also, yes it is very hard to deal with Lyme disease and chemo at the same time. I have been sick for 3.5 years with Lyme, so when I got diagnosed with cancer too it felt like such a shot to the heart.

    I hope I do better with taxol. Thank you for sharing your experience.

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  • PauletteK
    PauletteK Member Posts: 2,205
    edited October 2017

    I’m so sorry .... hugs !!! Do you have care taker? You got so much pains to deal with. Prayers for you, did you lost weight from AC??

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  • stephaniebc
    stephaniebc Member Posts: 53
    edited October 2017

    AC was brutal for me (although not quite as bad as what you describe) and very cumulative, meaning the last round was awful. taxol was a walk in the park by comparison, in fact most of the unpleasant side effects were from the steroids (insomnia particularly). i lost all of my eyebrows and eyelashes on taxol but life was pretty normal otherwise.

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  • PauletteK
    PauletteK Member Posts: 2,205
    edited October 2017

    step - did you have rashes, join pains and neuropathy ?

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  • Kicks
    Kicks Member Posts: 4,131
    edited October 2017

    From yrs of reading others responses, it seems that those of us who are doing both DD A/C and weekly Taxol will experience one with worse SEs than the other. For some, A/C is not that 'bad' while Taxol is 'bad' or visa versa ('bad' A/C but 'bad' Taxol).

    Can only speak for myself - neoadjuvant DD A/C did not slow me down at all (a few minor issues but not a problem at all). However, adjuvant weekly Taxol was nasty! Completely and utterly EXHAUSTED the entire time (but exhaustion started wearing off a week after last infusion when I started rads and continued to get better throughout rads). I had 2 'issues' develops during Taxol that I still deal with - low K (potassium) levels and a low temperature (was down to 94f during TX and still am below 'normal').

    We are each so unique.

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  • PauletteK
    PauletteK Member Posts: 2,205
    edited October 2017

    Kicks - I’m the Ac + taxol weekly, I’m on my #5 taxol now, I can feel several of my fingertips are having numbness and I think my MO might need to cut back my dosage soon. Temperature I’m fine, not sure about my potassium will find out this Thursday. When I have my AC, the hardest part was #3+4 infusions. Got my body big time fatigue.

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  • bravepoint
    bravepoint Member Posts: 404
    edited October 2017

    CIW - Sorry that you are fighting 2 battles at once. That's tough!

    I went through 4 rounds of AC three weeks apart so had a bit more recovery time than you. I was awful for the first 6 days, nauseous so tired that I couldn't eat. Are you taking all of the anti nausea medicine that has been prescribed for you? My chemo nurse gave me the advice that if my nausea got to 3 on a scale of 10 start taking the meds! It's easier to prevent it than get rid of it once it starts. There are things that you can do if the nausea is really bad so ask your MO or chemo nurse. I didn't find it cumulative but the same every time. I think that I got better prepared knowing what to expect, drinking lots of fluids and lying down every few hours during the day.

    Taxol weekly was a walk in the park for me compared to AC. I had trouble sleeping the first night due to the steroids and achiness 2-3 days later. I walked every day which helped with that. I did get a bit of numbness in the toes on my left foot around #8. My mouth was super dry and is still not back to normal 8 months PFC. I was able to work thru Taxol but not during AC.


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  • beauz
    beauz Member Posts: 207
    edited October 2017

    CIW- sorry you are going through so much extreme pain.

    I have neoadjuvant standard AC+taxol. 7 weekly taxol to go. My AC #1 and #2 treatment were relatively uneventful, just my usual side effects including one week constipation, bad taste in mouth for two days. For my AC #3, I developed temperature, low blood pressure, ponding heart and short of breath from day 3. So I went to ER on day 4, they couldn't find any infection. They gave me saline drip. Stayed in hospital over night. Felt better the next day. Then i had sore throat for a few days and fever on day 8 morning. Back to ER again. My oncologist requested nasal swab test for flu, which confirmed that I had influenza A. I was prescribed flu tablets. Stayed in hospital overnight. Got better the next day. Sore throat and fever were all gone. After AC #4 , I had trouble swallowing down food and water, like they stay in my oesophagus for a long time. I had to eat soft food and sip water. For weekly taxol, the side effects are so far manageable (fatigue, bad taste in mouth, mild numbness in feet). But the weekly infusions have been tortures. I had allergic reactions on taxol #1, so each time they start chemo at half rate for 30 minutes, then normal rate. I always feel so sick towards the end of infusion (bad smell in nose, awful taste in mouth, burning throat). Immediately after #1 and #4 infusion,I vomited. I had to skip two infusions in a row after #4 because of low blood counts. For taxol #5, my oncologist reduced the chemo dosage by 15%.

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  • PauletteK
    PauletteK Member Posts: 2,205
    edited October 2017

    beauz- wow you have such a bad experience with chemo, Hugs!

    I should not complain about taxol, I have reaction on infusion now, my infusion time takes about good 3 hours for taxol. Long but safe. I have skin rashes, now I’m going to see dermatologist. I didn’t feel nausea on AC but I do with taxol. So how many taxol did you do for now?

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