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Dear friend with stage 4 ovarian can't tolerate chemo: Options?
Gynecologic Cancers | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (17)Comment receiving replies
My friend was on chemo regime of carbonation and palatial.
Her blood count is too low to tolerate this treatment.
Could she be a candidate for immunotherapy?
Replies to "My friend was on chemo regime of carbonation and palatial. Her blood count is too low..."
@mike72 coming from someone (stage 3c) who had to take Neulasta to get my neutrophil count high enough EVERY time i took chemo AND who ended up having to have 7 units of blood through it to get my numbers up, that makes a lot of difference... fortunately i had a team of oncologists who were willing to think outside the box for options.... it wasn't just a "sorry your XXX count is too low" attitude... they said to me when it happened the first time "look there's this drug called Neulasta that can help build those neutrophils but you have to test low for 3 tests before we can say you're a candidate"...(this was after my first round of chemo) so i did and got on it and it worked.. they would give it to me as i was leaving from a chemo session (its an autoinjector) and then i'd come back 3 weeks later and my neutrophils would be high enough but my rbc or platelets or hemocrit or something else wouldn't be and i'd end up getting a transfusion or whatever and come back the NEXT week lol.. they ended up just doing a bag of potassium and a bag of something else (don't remember what) along with my chemo and Neulasta every time...so DEFINITELY ask about that... i did 3 rounds of chemo followed by surgery and 3 more rounds...mine responded well to the chemo although my body wasn't thrilled with it...
those are the same two drugs i took... acupuncture worked REALLY well in controlling the nausea (make sure you find a true acupuncturist, preferably one who studied in the Asian areas where its more common, not just a chiro who has taken a course in it), and ask for the dissolvable zofran instead of the pill...that made a world of difference as well
hope this helps...
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@mike72 I understand how worried you are for your friend. The person that can best answer your question about immunotherapy is her oncologist. Do you know if your friend has discussed alternatives to chemotherapy with her oncologist? Also, does she have someone to go to her appointments with her? I know from experience that as the patient I cannot absorb all the information that I hear in these appointments and so having my partner in the appointment with me is very helpful. Could you be the person who goes to oncology appointments with your friend?