meds. for nauseous

Dana, I have had severe nausea with my first 4 treatments of TCH.  I am down for about 6 days.  I've tried Emend (which my pharmacist said is the Cadillac of anti-nausea drugs).  I've tried compazine, zofram (which helps the most, but still very little) raglen, tigan, ativan and I'm still sick.  For this next treatment I'm going to stay on the steriods longer.  It might mean less sleep, but I'll try anything once.  If you find anything that works, let me know. I'm running out of options.  Thank heavens I only have 2 more to go.  Good luck, Mary

Hi,

I had 4 AC and 4 Taxotere. I never got the slight bit nauseated. I got Aloxi and Decadron prior to my chemo. I was given compazine and Marinol for nausea but I did not have to take it. Are they giving you anything prior to chemo infusion? Decadron is great. You just eat like a horse for the next couple of days.

Debbie 

Another vote for Emend here.  I was so sick after my first 2 AC treatments. I did Zofran and Decadron every  hours faithfully and it did not work...I was vomitting all the time.  My onc told me he could not have that and said to try the Emend...the last 2 AC's no vomitting at ALL!!!!!

My chemo nurse told me younger women seem to have more vomitting with the AC (I am 38)...she said they were actually doing a study to see if it is worth starting younger women on the Emend right away instead of making them suffer with SE's then prescrbing the Emend anyway.  

Good Luck and hang in there....AC is tough, but you are tougher! 

All I can add is that I was told to take all the anti-nausea meds my onc gave and take them all before I feel I need them. They work much better to keep it at bay that to cure it...

(((hugs)))

Gosh {{Dana}} I sure wish I could remember which I had the first treatment.  A first I think then the C and it was less n/v than when they did the c before a.  Maybe trying that next time might help!

Also, I did the kytril and it gave me great headaches and a feeling of being drunk in so far as my equilibrium was off. I couldn't move my head very fast without getting dizzy, so they switched me to zophran.  WOrked better.  But with both I had to use compazine on about the 10th hour to get me through to the 12th hour when the next pill(thingy) was due.  I was supposed to do teh kyrtil or zophran every 12 hours and at hour 10 had to do one comp to get to that hours.  Hope that made more sense.  Call them (your center) and have them call you in something different.  You should not have any nausea with all the med combos available.  I also had something they tried the 3rd and 4th treatments which was a drug mixed specially and had to be order overnight, but worked better.  It was called C-ABH, but I can't even rememeber what they stood for anymore   THere are a lot of choices and something WILL work!  Bug them!

DANA,

Ask your oncologist for zofran (ondansetron). It's been used for chemo related nausea/vomiting for decades and it works great for almost everyone and won't make you sleepy. It, along with kytril, dramatically changed the tolerance of chemotherapy when they were first introduced way back when.  It's now off patent, so it's very inexpensive and is more recently also available in a form that dissolves under the tongue - which makes it a good choice for someone who is actively nauseated or vomiting.

Emend is not indicated for treating nausea and vomiting that you already have, and since it's still on patent, it's extremely expensive. It's intended use is only to prevent N/V from starting in the first place. Once it starts, you have to use something else to treat it. In my experience as an oncology nurse, things like phenergan and compazine really don't offer most people all that much relief in treating chemo related N/V.      

Hi

 I am on A/C. My nausea meds are: Compazine, Decadron, Emends, and Ativan. I have had nausea but not enough to throw up just a foreign feeling in my stomach. All the drugs affect your stomach so it is better to eat easy to digest things like soup or toast but try to keep protein in there also. I find it takes a week for me to get my stomach back after the A/C and meds and neulasta. Don't try to eat regular meals for that week. Eat snacks as you feel hungry like a banana. Your appetite will come back once the drugs wear off. Don't do dairy doing drug week or pasta so you will not have diahera or constipation. Try to go with the flow and distract yourself with other things. W7

Hi there--

I have had one tx of TC so far (no A), and took Compazine every 6 hrs. for 2 days afterwards.  No nausea at all, but found myself feeling very depressed and disconnected somehow.  I'm wondering if I can just not take it unless I feel bad....they give me Aloxi prior to each infusion.  I also have a scrip for Zofran, so I will try that next time--hopefully it doesn't make you feel like you're underwater in a murky swamp.....  Phenergan is great when it's time to sleep!

I was FEC and then Docetaxol and I took my nausea medications the day before chemo and for four days after because I'm phobic about vomiting I can honestly say I had no problems with nausea, maybe a touch of queasiness but I think it was more nerves about nausea than actual nausea the medication my doc ordered was Prochlorazine I think it's an oldy but goody.  Good luck I hope that something works for you.

Hi-I also had the Emend-one the day of treatment and for 2 days after-Thank God for health insurance, because that and the Zofran that I had prescribed, but never had to use, are astonomically priced. I was also prescribed compazine, in both oral and suppository form, but the Emend worked so well, I only had to use a compazine supp once.

Hi there,

I took Kytril in conjunction with Emend. It worked well. I had the same chemo you did. I felt faintly off for about 1 -1.5 days and could only eat toast or dry cheerios, but never got really nauseous or threw up.

 Try every combo until you find the one that works for you. Don't worry about bugging your onc or the nurses. They want to help you.

 Hang in there,

Annie

Kerry, I have had 5 out of 6 treatments.  The nausea for me was horrible.  I never threw up, but I couldn't eat, couldn't function, had nausea and dizziness and awful diarrhea.  Each treatment we tried something different.  I've had emend, compazine, tigan, reglan, kytril, ativan, and zofran.  Zofran was the only thing that helped a little.  I was so bad I had scheduled IV's with my last 3.  On the sickest day I had which was day 8 after treatment #4 the doctor came into the room and told the nurse to also give me a bag of decadron.  I had no idea why, but by that evening I was 90% better.  We discussed it before treatment #5 and he had me try taking the normal dose of steriods, tapering off to one pill a day which I continued to take through day 10.  It made all the difference in the world.  On the week that I could hardly get out of bed and left the house only for IV's, I was able to go to lunch, get groceries and be fairly normal.  I still had a little nausea but it was tolerable.  The extra decadron did not keep me from sleeping and I okayed it with 2 different pharmacist to make sure it wouldn't be hard on my system.

My last treatment is next week and for the first time I'm not panicing.  I am so pleased we finally found something that workds for me.  Good luck, hope you also can find the magical cure.  Mary