Starting 2 dose carboplatin next week

[TimsWife]

Thanks for that response Kelly,

Just a couple more questions:

1. Claritan & Alievesure - are these drugs for nausea ?

2. Did Tim have any issues with low white blood cell count and infections? Like I said - I'm due to be away 10 days after my first treatment when I've read that white blood cells are at their lowest and your body is most vunerable to infection? I'm sure my oncologist will advise me on this but its always to hear other people's actual experiences.

Doug

Claritan & Alieve- no these were supposed to help with the effects of the of the shot of Neulasta - if you need it. Tim's Oncologist had him get 1 shot after each of the two doses- not everyone had to get it, but he wanted to play it safe- so his blood cell count did not drop too low. Becasue he did have the shot- there were really no issues. He had his Chemo on Friday & shot on Monday. The Shot can cause really bone pain & the drug help with it.

The other thing I wanted to mention that really helped us was reading studies on this treatment, whenever I got or even now get nervous, I just keep reading about how effective the treatment can be. Let meknow if you would like any links.

Tim was the most nervous about vomiting- it only happened once (but it was like 10 times) & we think it coinsidence- my daughter had the flu- nice timing.

Kepp the questions coming- if you would like to talk with me - send me an email & will cal you or give you my number.

[DougC]

Well I got the first dose of carbolatin today and so far it has all been fairly uneventful thankfully. They gave me an anti-sickness drug first and that must be working well because so far I feel no different than normal.

I just ate dinner and rode my bicycle to the pharmacy (about 1/2 a mile away so no big deal) to pick up my drugs for the next three days. Zofran (twice a day) for sickness and Dexamethasone (sterioids to boost my autoimmune system). Hopefully these work well and I feel this good for the next three days.

I go back to the hospitall in 10 days for a blood test to check my white blood cell count.

I'll let you know how the next 3 days go.

Bye for now

[DougC]

An amazing day with no nausea, tiredness or any of the side effects I was expecting after of my carboplatin treatment which I had yesterday. I am assuming the two drugs I am on, Zofran and Dexamethasone are doing the trick. I have been eating well all day with no sign of any sickness. No more tired than normal - although I slept poorly last night. That was as much related to other things on my mind than as a result of my treatment. (I have to complete a draft of a thesis for an MSc by next week and that is preoccupying my mind).

I did have one problem which was a bout of hiccups. This was more an annoyance at first but after a 1.5 hour bout it became a bit uncomfortable. This was followed later in the day by another bout which lasted about an hour. I thought was unrelated to anything but having 'Googled' hiccups I see that 30% of people who get chemo are affected by hiccups. Also I see that the drug Dexamethasone which I am taking is known to cause hiccups. Has anyone else out there experienced a problem with hiccups on either of these drugs? IN the hospital they gave me a two page list of potential side-effects I might experience but there was no mention of hiccups.

I'm hoping it wont happen again tomorrow because it is quite uncomfortable and difficult to concentrate during a prolonged bout. I tried all the usual remedies for hiccups but none of them made any difference. In both cases they stopped spontaneously.

Any advice on this would be welcome.

[Karen]

Doug,
Glad you're tolerating this well and hope it continues! Hiccups are not uncommon and the nurses/doc may be able to help you out with that. Also, you may want to give a read to the paper I posted in the Research Library today. I must admit when some guys here opted for carboplatin I was wary, but data thus far looks promising. You are one of the handful of pioneers on this site with 2 cycles carbo and the info you post will help others that, unfortunately, will have to make the same choices. Treatment for seminoma has evolved over the past 20 years and perhaps in 10 more RT will not even be considered.

[DougC]

Up date on my 2 dose Carboplatin treatment for those of you interested.

Day 4 after first does of Carboplatin with virtually zero side affects. Had hiccups on day 1 and 2 but that's gone now. Some constipation but hopefully that will be resolved today. (I've been taking something for that and there are some rumbles today!!) No sickness, mild tiredness but to be honest I've often felt more tired after a night out.

Blood check for white blood cell count due on Friday - and I need to try and avoid opportunities for infection over the next 10 days. Hopefully that will go OK.

Next dose of carboplatin is on 9 May.

[TimsWife]

Awesome Doug!!!! You are in our daily prayers!

[Scott]

Glad to hear you're doing well, Doug!

[DougC]

Well its been a mixed week since I posted last. Unfortunately things changed a bit for the worse during the week once the steroids and anti-sickness drug wore off.

I was really tired on Monday, finding it difficult to concentrate in work, even more so on Tuesday and a bit sick. On Wednesday I hit rock bottom, with a pounding headache and vomiting all day. Stayed in bed for about 24 hours before I was able to function any way normally. After that I felt better all the time but I have one problem still which has not been resolved and that is severe constipation. My doctor believes it was casued by the anti-sickness drug Zofron. I normally don't have any problems in this department.

Since the day of my chemo I have not had a proper bowel movement. I am now on a high daily dose of a laxative called Movical. This drug is mixed with water and taken as a drink. It contains a substance called polyethylene glycol which apparently causes the water in the solution being drunk to be absorbed into the gut to soften everything up. This is my third day on this drug and still no movement as of this morning - so I hope this is the day. Since the day of my chemo I was taking other laxatives and eating a lot of fruit and drinking juice as a preventative measure but none of this appears to have worked. Strangely, I am not uncomfortable although my appeitite has now gone which I suppose is a good thing. I have been passing small amounts of diarrhoea but this is apparently by-passing the main bulk of material in my intestine.

Apologies for the unpleaseant details but if anyone has any experience of this or any suggestions please let me know. This was not a side-effect I was expecting, although to be fair it seems that it is not the fault of the Carboplatin but the Zofron taken to prevent sickness.

[DougC]

I though I'd better update any of you who were following my posts.

Well my constipation issue was finally resolved with a large coctail of laxatives which finally got things moving and everything was resolved last weekend, two and half weeks after my first round of carboplatin chemo. As it turns out the diarrhoea I was having was slowly empying my bowel bit by bit although I did not think so at the time. By last Sunday I felt good and even managed a 20 mile cycle (at a leiesurly pace).

I had my second round of carboplatin on Wednesday. This time the doctor did not prescribe the anti-sickness drug Zofran as he believed that it caused the constipation. Instead I am taking Valeoid and also the steroid Dexamethasone as before. This time around I was very sick the day after treatment and vomited a number of times in the morning. I took the anti-sickness tablets but I reckon the weren't having any effect because I vomitted them up soon after taking them. Eventually thing settled down and by 6.00pm I was fine. On Friday (yesterday) I went to work and felt fine. Today so far OK although nothing like the last time when I was on Zofran and I felt 100%.

Hopefully I'll be OK for the rest of the week. One worry I have is that my white cell count was down from 6.6 before my first treatment to 3.8 before this treatment. Does anyone know if that is reasonable or is it quite a big drop? My understanding was that the lowest point was likely to be about 10 days after treatment and it would then improve from there on. However, in my case my WCC was 6.5 after 10 days and then dropped further over the following 10 days. Opinions on this would be welcome.

[Karen]

Hi Doug,
Thanks for the update! I hope this round is tolerated OK. You're in the home stretch (is that spelled right...looks weird) and this will soon be a thing of the past. Your docs sound like they are responsive to your needs, a good thing. I can't offer advice on the white count, but can say that there are really no hard and fast rules for how any one body responds to things, so the 10 day drop may not apply to you. Stay healthy with the low count and keep us posted!

[Fed]

Hey man,
Thanks for sharing your updates. They will come in handy for others contemplating adjuvant chemo as an option for addressing stage I seminoma. As far as the low WBCs, I should mention that while your body is recovering and your marrow gets to work in replenishing your cells, you might want to avoid environments that may have a large concentration of pathogens and other bugs (places like hospitals and gyms). That way, you'll be avoiding potential sources of infections that will catch you off-guard with a low WBC count.