Xeloda/Cape-Hand/Foot & Essential Oil Help

[doulos21]

For those experiencing sore feet with cape: I had responded to BettyBucket with info about Topical Heparin Gel, but now also have some info about essential oil use for help if you need it. I realize not everyone believes in essential oil use, or has a stock....but for those who are interested, after some research I found a GREAT formula to use for ACUTE situation where it's really sore!! I am careful to follow evidenced based info for safety and efficacy, and have found the following to be VERY helpful!! A 10% dilution is safe to use for ACUTE situation for up to 7 consecutive days. It helped me in just hours. After 7 days, you'd want to cut it to a 3% dilution for maintenance, if you choose to continue use. I used a shot glass I found at Walmart with markings showing tsp/tbsp, ml/oz. Mixed stuff in there, transferred with a plastic pipette to an amber glass 15oz container (left off the reducer which is often on bottles to measure drops).

JOJOBA carrier oil is anti-inflammatory, wound healing, is great for dry/inflamed skin, and has a LONG shelf life. Essential oils I combined are anti-inflammatory, reduce swollen/puffiness/accumulated fluids, analgesic/pain reducing. Here's my recipe

1/2oz JOJOBA carrier oil

6drops each: Juniper, Cypress, Lemongrass essential oils

4dr each: Eucalyptus (I used Euc..globulus), Geranium, Thyme essential oils.

This is a total of 30dr per 1/2oz, or 60dr per 1oz carrier (a 10% dilution) for ACUTE use only. If you wanted to reduce it to a 3% sol just divide the 60 drops accordingly. You could also use combinations rotating in chamomile, lavender rosemary, patchouli (skin regenerating), ylang ylang, tea tree, peppermint as desired and I'm sure there are others also good.

For use, after transferring to amber bottle, just tip and get a bit on your finger tips, massage onto feet, you might need 2-4 tips...not a lot!! That got rid of pain FAST!. For extra help, I let that absorb in for a minute or so, top with urea or other clean label cream. After 24 hrs, pain significantly reduced, swelling down. after 48 hrs, feet pain free (still red, but not swollen).

Hope this helps someone....

Barb

[Bettybuckets]

Firhas anyone used Tegraderm )which is waterproof transparent dressing) to protect your feet from the rub of blisters? I want to try it to walk without rub. I’m concerned that the xeloda may still need to work its way out through sweat. Has anyone been told not to use these surgical clear adhesives?

Barb-thank again for fantastic info. I spoke with the pharmacist you recommend at the compounding pharmacy in Florida snd he said that many MBC ladies are calling from all over the country. My onc sadly wouldn’t write the script to get it as he thought it would be too many variables adn wanted to try lowering my dose of cape and see how much relief that brought. Now I am on just 2000 mg day and it is much better! I just walked on my old gorgeous beach in nz about a mile! My feet are red but they didn’t blister. This is promising!

[Bettybuckets]

hi barb and wanted to tell you that that the best thing worked for my feet was to put the 40 % urea cream in my feet and then cover them with gel socks to let it really soak in for an hour. After the first week I haven’t had any cracking or blistering. Hope that helps.

[doulos21 in reply to Bettybuckets]

what are gel socks, and can you provide link to see the resource? Thanks!!!

[doulos21 in reply to Bettybuckets]

I found this at Amazon, might this be similar to what you found? I note this has olive and jojoba oils as carrier oil and Lavender & Vitamin E....good to have a NATURAL alternative!!

[13plus in reply to doulos21]

I was curious too about the gel socks. Do you have a link though to what you found on Amazon?

[doulos21 in reply to 13plus]

amazon.com/s?k=gel+socks&i=...

[Hopeful4Cure]

Peppermint and frankincense are good too. I just use cocooil or olive oil as the carrier and it did wonders for my feet while on cap. Hope it helps.

[Sharon0122]

will it help with back pain?

[doulos21 in reply to Sharon0122]

you certainly could try it...HOWEVER: NOTE: a 10% dilution ratio is good for small area use. This would probably be too high of a ratio for an all over back application....for a larger area you would be better to make a 3-5% dilution ratio. These oils are known for anti-inflammatory and analgesic/pain, so might be good....As Hopeful mentioned, peppermint is also great! I know folks getting the fulvestrant shots blend peppermint with castor oil and apply to injection area., so am sure that might help also. Note that peppermint MAY be invigorating to some folks, so you'd need to try it to see if it disrupts your sleep. For good info from companies that have good quality oils and transparency for quality testing, check with Eden's Gardens and Plant Therapy.

[Sharon0122]

thanks I’ll give it a try!

[13plus]

I love this information and hearing about your positive experience. I'm not on cape but used to have a friend on something similar that caused agony for her feet. And I do often have really bad Athlete's foot, just on one foot. I hate it! When it flares up, which is quite often, it causes red inflamed skin over the whole soul and heel area, but also dry peeling skin, and I'll get splits around the edges of my foot very quickly if I don't treat it asap. The cream for it helps but never heals the skin beyond a certain point, so now I'm thinking something like this mixture might be the golden key to better foot skin!

I have occasionally used essential oils for very different and various reasons, and have been impressed with how much they have helped me. I didn't get into it very much because I was always a bit worried about possible negative impacts on my cancer treatment (and hear toxicity with too much use of certain oils is a possibility too) but I think I will try this for my foot!Thanks so much for sharing!

[doulos21 in reply to 13plus]

sorry,folks, for all you reading this thread, but I couldn't help responding to 13plus: here's an article about essential oils & other stuff for athlete's foot--fungal infxn. draxe.com/beauty/athletes-f...

[Dflur]

Good post Barb! I have really depended on my stash of essential oils since my MBC diagnosis. It’s an awesome, non addictive, non side effects, non invasive to my other treatments , tool. From pain, to anxiety, to depression, to insomnia, inflammation, infections, immune health, you name it!💕

[doulos21 in reply to Dflur]

for good info on safe use of essential oils, Dr. Eric Zelinski (out of Atlanta GA) is all about safety and evidenced based use of these wondrous things.....I am not affiliated with him in any way, but find his website useful...info about safe dilution is here: naturallivingfamily.com/dil... . There is a further link in the text for a chart. Another good source of info about essential oils is draxe.com/essential-oils/.

[Hotlantaphatz]

wow! Thanks for this !

[AnnieAppleseed]

Also possible to LOWER dosage, can be as low as 1800 for capecitabine (xeloda).

[PJBinMI]

I've found Vitamin E oil to be helpful. Over 40 years ago, my ophthalmologist told me that Vit E oil helps surface tissue heal. I buy it from Amazon. A little goes a long way!

[doulos21 in reply to PJBinMI]

PBJ....what strength Vit.E oil do you usually use? I know there are various strengths, such as 43,000IU, 75,000IU, etc....on amazon, I see some products are "blends" with other oils, some are straight Vit. E....which have you found most useful?

[Shafight]

where do you find these essential oils?

[doulos21 in reply to Shafight]

I found Eden's Garden and Plant Therapy and Rocky Mountain oils have excellent quality with a lot less expensive pricing than the MLM companies. I'm quite sure there are many other good quality companies out there, but these are so well priced, and have excellent transparency about testing, and you can see the testing reports for each oil you are looking at. Mountain Rose Herbs is also a good place for oils, but the others have free shipping.

[Shafight]

thank you