by Victoria Dame

Created on: May 27, 2008

Side effects from chemotherapy are fatigue, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation, decrease blood cell counts, Anemia low red blood cell count, bleeding or bruising due to low platelet count, muscle and nerve problems, dry skin or rashes, hair loss, mouth sores, lung problems or difficulty breathing, coughing excessively, fertility and sexuality problems and pain. All treatment is different and you may or may not suffer from these side effects. You need to talk with your doctor before beginning chemotherapy treatment about which side effects to expect.

What causes side effects? Chemotherapy is made to kill fast growing cancer cells but as it has no way of telling the difference between fast growing cancer cells and fast growing health cells it will also try and kill them also. These healthy cells are the ones that line your mouth and intestines, cells in your bone marrow that makes blood cells, and cells that make your hair grow. Chemotherapy causes side effects when it harms these healthy cells.

There are many ways for doctors to prevent or treat chemotherapy side effects. You need to make sure you let your doctor or nurse know about any changes you notice so that they can help or start the treatment you need to stop the side effect.

One way of helping yourself with some of your blood side effects is by understanding your CBC test. You can manage them to help reduce the possibility that they will compromise your treatment, if you will keep a dairy of your blood counts throughout your chemotherapy.

Here are a few rules to remember about side effect. Every person doesn't get every side effect, and some people don't get any. The severity of side effects is different from person to person. Make sure you ask your doctor or nurse which side effects you might have with your chemotherapy, and how long they might last, if it can become serious and if it does become serious when to seek medical attention. Be sure and take the medicine your doctor might prescribe to prevent some side effects. And remember that many people have no long term problems from chemotherapy. Even though while you are going through them you may not think so.

No one wants to go through the side effects of chemotherapy by even though they may be unpleasant they must be measured against the treatment's ability to destroy your cancer. Sometimes you must choose the lesser evil to survive.

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