cramps, cramps go away
 

I started my first round of Taxol and Herceptin on Tuesday, Thursday I started having the muscle cramps. I still have the same cramps today. Does this go away or will it be like this for the rest of the 11 weeks? I will take this over A/C but it sure makes sleeping difficult.

Tonic Water
 

Hey There,

If you are talking about leg cramps....go get some Tonic water. Contains quinine and it works for leg cramps.

Hugs, Bonnie

Laurie ~ I am so sorry that you have to go through this. I remember this well. The cramping does seem to happen with this combination. I was given pain pills & sure wish I remember what they were to tell you! But I'm sure other ladies here have suggestions of what pain pills helped. I didn't take them until after the cramping/aching started which hit me usually the next day in the afternoon after my treatment. What I started doing after a month or more of this aggravation is I started taking the pain pills before the achiness started & it made a difference to me. I was able to go to all my boys soccer games and move around pretty good which was important to me. I also took IP-6, Vitamin E & B but you need to check with your Onc. before you try to add anything. One thing to note is I had a problem with constipation with the pain pills at first so I just increased my daily juicing of carrots & added different fruits or vege's to it so I wouldn't get bored. To help me sleep I took melatonin.

To me this combination was easier than the dose dense A/C I did. I really had a hard time with that. I continued to have runny nose when I was on Herceptin only and sometimes leg cramps so don't be alarmed if you have those too.

Wish I could make it go away but I think that there are things that can help make it easier for you.

Ruth

Laurie,

When I was on taxol I had really bad bone pain. I also took neupogen shots that added to the pain. The bone pain would start about the day after my infusion and would last about 3-4 days. I had dose dense taxol so that may be why mine lasted for a few days. I hope that you are able to get something to help with the pain. I took Ibuprofin and that seemed to take the edge off some.

Hugs,
Lexi

Ask for Quinine pills -
 

I also took many months of weekly Taxol for my mets. I STILL have the cramps in legs, hands and feet from time to time. The Tonic water has a mere fraction of the amount of Quinine that you need to keep this under control. Besides the pills cost much less.

My med onc prescribed the capsules and they are cheap and do not interact with anything (at least for me). I still need them at times and they really work.

For the pain, which is from neuropathy, I used Neurontin. That was a lifesaver too. The Aleve, etc, just did not suppress my pains enough. Like Lexie I was also on the Neupogen to boost my white count.

The only other thing that helped was soaking in a warm bath before bed.

Good luck with this - I am sure it can be managed.

The thing that helped me with the horrible taxol bone pain I experienced, was decadron 2x a day for the three days after taxol and a zyrtec 1x a day for three days. I hate decadron but it really helped me.

Karen