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Acute myeloid leukemia (AML): What can I expect?
Blood Cancers & Disorders | Last Active: Nov 12, 2023 | Replies (137)Comment receiving replies
I was diagnosed with AML last year in the first week of August. Here it is the end of Feb and the last biopsy I had said I was cancer free. I am still on bag chemo for 4 days a month and home chemo pills for 14 days on and 14 days off. My question is the longer I am on chemo the more things are happening to me. My skin is breaking out in bumps and dry skin. At night my tummy feels like I want to vomit. I haven’t done that yet but depression is setting in and I feel like it’s slowly killing me not just the cancer.
Replies to "I was diagnosed with AML last year in the first week of August. Here it is..."
I agree that chemo for AML is brutal! I had 5 rounds of chemo before I had my transplant. The recovery from each chemo round was slow and I had all the symptoms you described. Your body will recover from those symptoms. Make sure to talk to your doctors about what symptoms management may work for you.
My skin also became very thin and dry. I went through a number of different moisturizers before finding one that worked for me.
While I was recovering from all the treatments, I had to evaluate what I had control over and what was completely out of my hands. (A lot was out of my hands!) My mental recovery started when I began walking. At first, I only had enough energy to walk for 5 minutes. After a few months, it increased to 1,5 hours a day. I was living in Michigan then and did a lot of my walking in my living room, since it was in the middle of winter. I also could focus on nutrition and needing to get more protein into my diet.
Recovery is a long process, but do what you can today to strengthen your body.
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Hi @txsnowbird, Welcome to Mayo Connect. Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a sneaky one. The cancer cells can be elusive by hiding, they can also morph quickly to evade chemo. That’s why there is often ongoing chemo for several months after the initial induction treatment.
Chemo to treat AML is aggressive. It has to be in order to keep ahead of those creative, aggressive cancer cells. Each monthly cycle of chemo knocks down a few more cells that might be lingering and the goal is, at some point to out-wait or out-wit any cells that are hiding from the chemo.
Unfortunately, the side effects from each subsequent round of treatment can take a toll requiring longer recovery time for your body and may leave your immune system weaker as well. This is possibly why you’re seeing changes in your skin, feeling nauseated and just plain miserable some days. It is depressing and you feel like you’re never going to be normal again.
I had AML, but mutations that caused it to happen required a bone marrow transplant after several rounds of chemo. Not everyone requires that as a last resort.
A good friend, whom I met while mentoring at our local cancer center, has a similar scenario as yours. She went on to have many rounds of chemo. After clean biopsies, she is finally off the meds and is now recovering really well. Her skin and digestive tract are better, she has energy and hair is growing in!
It’s excellent news that your latest biopsy has come back clean! That is a very good sign. Has your hematologist/oncologist talked about when you’ll be able to stop the monthly chemo sessions?