Chemotherapy - The Truth about Side Effects

Ivyleaf · #1 (**permalink**) 02-08-2008, 05:19 PM

Quote:

CHEMOTHERAPY - THE TRUTH ABOUT SIDE EFFECTS
From The Cancer Chronicles #7©Dec. 1990 by Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

Most of the 40 or so chemotherapeutic agents cause baldness by-producing a weakened hair shaft that breaks off at the scalp. Hair may take years to return to normal.

Nausea and vomiting are common. Such nausea can lead to weakness, weight loss, dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Other gasto-intestinal effects are infections of the mucous lining, lips, tongue and mouth. Abdominal colic, constipation, diarrhoea are all common. Candida (thrush) is found in 13% of patients.

Doxorubicin
Causes oesophagus inflammation in 50%.

Toxic drugs leaking from a needle causes skin necrosis; severe damage to nerves, tendons and muscle can follow. Surgeons treat his by excising the skin, followed by grafts to repair the damage.

Radiation recall:
Skin, trying to heal from radiation burns, reddens and peels again; blisters and oozing follow. 5-FU can even make people burn from normal sunlight.

Busulfan
Causes discoloration of the skin, weakness, inability to eat and resulting weight loss.

Doxorubicin
Causes darkening of fingers and toes.

Bleomycin
Results in weird pigmentation of the trunk.

Thiotepa
Leads to whitening of the eyelids, nail damage, brittleness, loosening and even loss of nail plates.

Most anti-cancer drugs also cause second cancers, especially of the gasto-intestinal tract, ovaries, and lungs. These are nearly impossible to treat. Tumours continue to develop for years.. In one study, 17.6% of survivors developed unrelated cancer up to 15 years later.

Immune system damage is almost universal.

The whole panoply of blood diseases is seen:
Thrombocytopenia with its loss of white blood cell which guards against infection; severe bone marrow hypoplasia; inability to synthesize fibrinogen; abnormally long bleeding time; granulocytopenia. Resulting infections can be treated with antibiotics, but these can bring their own set of side effects.

Heart damage can occur weeks, months or years after treatment, signalled by rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, distended neck veins, swollen ankles, enlarged liver and heart. Up to 30% of high-dose Doxorubicin-recipients develop congestive heart failure.

Over 40% of patients experience mouth ulcers, pain and bleeding, which can make eating a torture. Other problems: candida, herpes and viral infections; dry mouth, drooling, painful swallowing. Loss of sensation, muscle pain, weakness and changes in senses and motor skills are common.

Methotrexate
Causes stiff neck, headache, nausea, vomiting, fever and lethargy for up to 72 hours. Paralysis, paraplegia and death have also occurred.

Vinblastine and Vincristine
Cause double vision, loss of bladder-control, impotence, and paralysis of the bowel wall.

Cis-platin
Associated with this is ear damage and hearing loss, which is being used against testicular, ovarian, cervical, head and neck cancers.

Reproductive organs can be profoundly damaged, resulting in sterility.

BCNU
Causes pulmonary fibrosis - lungs harden, with dry cough, fever, difficult breathing and cyanosis in 20¬30% of patients.

**Adam** · #2 (**permalink**) 02-08-2008, 05:24 PM

Ivyleaf · #3 (**permalink**) 02-08-2008, 05:28 PM

I know - it's scary isn't it. If it isn't bad enough for those poor folk knowing they have cancer - they they have to face the decision whether or not to agree to undergoing the harsh treatments that go with it.

**Adam** · #4 (**permalink**) 02-08-2008, 05:32 PM

I knew there were side affects but never really knew to what extent.

So very sad that people have to suffer more to get better.

**Jezer** · #5 (**permalink**) 02-08-2008, 05:45 PM

I'm not up with the latest developments, noting that the article is nearly twenty years old.

One of my best friends was being treated at the MD Anderson Center in Houston, one of the foremost cancer treatment places in the world- amazing place.

Some of the new developments are quite drastic, dependent on the aggressiveness of the disease.

Sadly they didn't save my mate who was in his forties and had skin melanoma.

Escafeldia · #6 (**permalink**) 14-08-2008, 05:40 PM

God that list is horrendous. My next door neighbour has a cancer of his stomach. He has had eight lots of chemotherapy and is now terminal. Reading this makes me wonder whether his original cancer, skin cancer as I remember it, has developed into cancer of the stomach: "Most anti-cancer drugs also cause second cancers, especially of the gastro-intestinal tract, ovaries, and lungs. These are nearly impossible to treat. Tumours continue to develop for years". Sometimes one wonders whether the treatment isn't worse overall than the disease itself.

PlugnPlay · #7 (**permalink**) 20-08-2008, 03:55 PM

It’s not a given that you will or will not develop a Cancer in your life time, but would you pass up having treatment based on what you have read?
As Jezzer points out the article is around 19 years old and things have moved on since then.

Cancer Research UK: the UK's leading cancer charity

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