My husband received his first cycle of docetaxel 4 days ago and so far his only side effect has been fatigue. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and watching for side effects. He’s also on prednisone and nubeqa, as well as his injection of Zoladex. Wondering if anyone else can shed light on their experience with chemo and if side effects get worse with each cycle of docetaxel?
Chemo Side Effects: My husband received... - Advanced Prostate...
Chemo Side Effects
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Iber
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I am so relieved to hear his chemo went well. I am in line behind him to start it . I just found this calming video for chemo and posted it when I saw your post.
My husband had no side effects from docetaxel other than hair loss. Even my brother tolerated it, when he was 81. He was only going to have one dose, to qualify him for Pluvicto, but he had 5 doses because he tolerated them so well.
I have had 5 shore, fatigue gets a little worse, otherwise okay.
Should read shots not shore, autocorrect!
The effects are cumulative. Y the 4th treatment I had severe fatigue the week after each dose. Felt good by the third week, then another dose. I used the ice mittens Snd socks which helped pre ent neuropathy.
Glad all went well the first round. I continued to work the entire time. Takes about 4-5 months to recover after the last treatment.
Good luck
I’ve had 2 cycles and picked up infections both times, so get him to keep an eye on his temperature. Other than that and fatigue, not too bad. 3rd cycle this Friday with a reduced dose so fingers crossed.
The fatigue from the Zoladex and darolutamide is usually worse than the chemo, but there is some, and of course everyone is different.
The great equalizer is exercise. It fights fatigue like nothing else. Any amount at all is vastly better than none, and a bit more is better still.
Fatigue like most after the first one not too bad but by the 2nd dose It felt like I had the worst cold ever for about a week and this continued after each dose, also the horrible taste everything had a metallic taste to it.I lost nearly 2 stone over the 18 weeks.
The thing to be careful of is to make sure he doesn't get any viral infections this could be really nasty and turn sepsis.
But I guess that should have been explained before your first treatment.
Good luck hope he continues to have mild side effects.
I spoke too soon! Last night he started experiencing extreme bone pain in his lower back and joints. Waiting to speak to his oncologist.
Will keep prayers going🙏. Hope they can give something for pain🙏
My experience...the side effects were generally consistent throughout the six cycles with one exception, the fatigue. For whatever reason the 4th infusion brought on pretty severe fatigue, My oncologist ran labs to try and determine what was going on, didn't show anything. With the 5th and sixth infusion, fatigue was back to "normal."
Some of the side effects are progressive, losing hair, finger and toe nails discoloring....
Kevin
Hello, I’m glad all is going well so far. I completed 10 rounds of Docetaxel. One week after my first infusion, I developed a fever due to low white blood count. I was put on Neulasta for the duration of the chemo. So, keep an eye out for fever. Besides that, I had slight nausea that got worse with each infusion. The nausea usually lasted a week. Neuropathy in my left foot developed after the 8th infusion. I religiously iced my hands and feet which I believe helped prevent significant neuropathy. Best of luck to you.
Hi Iber!
Maybe I can give you and your husband a little encouragement. I have some comments about Docetaxel and also some material just about my overall experience after diagnosis.
Over 2 years ago I was diagnosed with a not dissimilar situation with your husband. My PSA was even significantly higher, although your husband is quite high. And I had mets from my hips all the way up to my ribs and several compromised vertebrae. Stage 4 and an emergency situation.
And I was fortunate to end up with a medical oncologist that suggested triplet therapy - which at that time was not even standard of care. And I've done very well on that since then to the point that last winter I said to my wife that I felt sort of normal. She laughed of course. Most of my metastases "have gone to sleep" and don't show up on a scan now. It's possible although not guaranteed, sadly.
And triplet therapy makes a big difference! As you probably know by now, the theory is "let's hit those nasty cancer cells with everything we've got, all up front!" And not sequentially one after the other waiting for each therapy to fail.
The statistics on how much time we have are kind of misleading - because they still include a lot of people being treated with older therapies. But if you look at the people just on the new therapies including triplet therapy, the numbers are better and not even all in yet. Which is not to say of course that we can escape the thing.
I did the six rounds of Docetaxel at 85%. And I don't remember a lot of nasty side effects except fatigue. I did have hydromorphone pills which I took after each infusion.
I also had the anti-infection injection (which my wife did so we didn't have to go into the hospital) - I assumed that this was standard, but apparently it's not. Probably should be.
You can read about the use of ice; whether it works or not I don't know but I did not get any neuropathy.
And then there's fasting as well, I did a day before and the day off. There's a theory it makes the cancer cells more vulnerable and at the same time possibly helping to spare normal cells.
I'm going to share here now some previous notes I have collected. You can scroll up and down from the original reference note too. Some of the notes are older and might be out of date. And these topics of course are by no means comprehensive. There are lots of great notes hiding on this forum, although sometimes they're hard to find.
CHEMO & DOCETAXEL
healthunlocked.com/advanced...
CHEWING ON ICE
healthunlocked.com/advanced...
healthunlocked.com/advanced...
FASTING
healthunlocked.com/advanced...
JOURNEY
The Beginning Of A Metastatic Prostate Cancer Journey - Part 1 of 2
healthunlocked.com/advanced...
The Beginning Of A Metastatic Prostate Cancer Journey - Part 2 of 2
healthunlocked.com/advanced...
A big success for your husband! And in figuring out all this daily of information. And the impact on one's normal way of life!
John-in-the-Middle
Thanks John. I was hoping to hear from you. Your journey ( I hate this overused word lol) is very inspiring. I will share this with my husband.
That's great Iber! FYI, I had trouble posting and kept getting blocked and was corresponding with technical support. And today they suggested getting rid of the dotted lines that I used to separate different sections. So I was unblocked again. And this time it worked! I'm glad to be inspiring, and I'm glad I can be inspiring! And there are many inspiring people that I have been inspired by, on this forum! Lots of inspiration, and we will add you and your husband now too! 😃
