Hope Posted June 22, 2003 Share Posted June 22, 2003 Hi everyone- my mom began her first dose (of her second round- went through this last year) of carboplatin on Wednesday morning and became very ill. By that night I had her at the ER with SEVERE nausea and terrible migraine. She was admitted, and from Wednesday night until l:30am this morning (Saturday) was begging for relief from her headache, vomiting, restless, trying to climb out of the hospital bed and delirious. Finally at l:30 she began to rest and "woke up". She only remembers being very sick and having a horrible headache. I think she was in a cycle of getting sick from the atavan, zofran and other medications that were being used to try to curtail the headache and the nausea. One made her headache better, but upset her stomach and viceversa. The morphine and dexamorph-something she was on probably made her so out of it. The onc said he doesn't know why she had such a horrible reaction to the carboplatin because she did 6 tx of that along with taxe-something last year. We were very surprised and were even afraid she wouldn't recover. But she is back to herself now, just weak. He also mentioned that the chest lesions on the cat scan could possibly be non-small cell. They can't do a biopsy because of the location, close to the aorta. The doctor had hoped to use carboplatin and the taxe-? again since she had l3 months of complete response using it last time, but won't be using it now. He mentioned using V-l6? or something like that, but will talk with her about it when she goes for her counts on Thursday. He said to still expect to botom out even though they didn't finish the regimen, and they will resume some type of chemo when she recovers in 21 days or so. Have you heard of this happening to anyone? Has anyone checked out this site? cureamerica.net/needhelp.htm My dh works with a woman who's fiance had testicular ca and took these supplements (mostly coral calcium, vit d, coq10, cesium, applying dmso) and was totally healed. We are thinking of ordering this for my mom. It's about $700 Thanks, Hope Mom, 67, dx limited sclc 0l/02 no pci recurrance chest 06/03 resuming chemo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdaW Posted June 22, 2003 Share Posted June 22, 2003 Dear Hope, Are you sure that your Mom's reaction was from the chemotherapy? I am asking because you mentioned Zofran. The absolute worst day during my entire lung cancer experience was the day I started Zofran. I had a severe headache and spent the entire day either in bed or in the bathroom throwing up. It made me very, very sick. I am now on Celexa and have had no adverse reactions--I took it through all chemos, surgery, and radiation with no problems. Another question. I am concerned that the doctor doesn't know whether your Mom has SCLC or NSCLC. Without a biopsy how do they know that 1)she even has lung cancer and 2) what chemotherapy agents to use? Please understand that I am not a medical person and don't know if this is a common problem. I have just never heard of doctors proceeding with treatments without knowing the cell type. My original tumor was located right next to my vena cava and I still had a bronchoscopy. In order to diagnose and stage me they did many, many tests--X-Rays, CT scans, PET scan, and a bronchoscopy. I may be forgetting something. These are the tests that people have. Has your Mom gone through this process of diagnosis and staging. I am sorry that your Mom got so sick. I am thinking of you both. Ada Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hope Posted June 23, 2003 Author Share Posted June 23, 2003 Yes, I do think the Zofran helped with the cycle of nausea, vomiting and headache, but she initially only had Atavan with the carboplatin Wednesday morning. She didn't get zofran until we went to the ER that night. Once they stopped the IV zofran on Thursday, she seemed to start getting a little better. But it still took until Saturday morning at l:30 am for her to recover. She did have a bronchoscopy in January 02 when the sclc was diagnosed. This time, the ct showed two lesions in the chest and the doctor said he consulted many physicians as well as the tumor board, and they all concurred that it was not in a good place to biopsy, and to treat it as sclc, although it COULD be nsclc. He said the treatment would have been the same for either. Thanks for your input. She came home today, and is weak but more her old self. Hope mom dx limited sclc 0l/02 chemo/radiation, no pci complete response until recurrence 06/03 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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