My story began with a spot on my neck and then made lots of tests and examinations... Finally I was diagnosed with HL stage 2A and taken my bone marrow for biopsy but the result hasn't come yet.If the bone marrow result comes positive, my doctor said that my HL stage will be upgraded to 4A and my treatment period will be longer. I hope it'll be OK!.....
And yesterday, I got my first ABDV chemo....I felt really strange because felt like I wasn't the one who was ill until the nurse opened my vein with a needle for the serum...Anyway, yesterday I didn't feel any sickness something like that and experienced little bit constipation...but today has been terrible because I'm about die because of the nausea and vomitting eventhough I take medicine against the nausea....
I just wonder that everyone who takes ABDV chemo experiences the hair loss problem..because I'm really obsessed with hair loss....
could somebody give some info about this?...And am I gonna lose all my hair?:((
Most likely you will.. Its only temp thing as soon as treatment stops hair will grow again. I lost mine with in 3 weeks having cemo started. Stand Strong
Sharp-
K's right, ABVD has a bit of a track record in terms of hair loss.
Also, I think as you continue in treatment you'll uncover a pattern that you can rely on, i.e. the first day you're good, the second through the fourth you're in bad shape, then good again etc. It should be pretty reliable and allow you to work around it.
I hope your bone marrow biopsy comes back negative but should you be upgraded to stage IV you still have a highly treatable disease. It won't be easy. But you can beat it.
Hi, Sharp!
You and I are in the same boat. I started ABVD on 3/4 . I'm cutting my long hair tomorrow and donating it. I have had long hair for most of my life and am sure the whole hair loss issue will be traumatizing. The good news is that it will grow back! Hang in there! Keep us posted on how your treatment goes. Best of luck to you!
Kayogamama
My 20 yr old had his hair thinned out but did not lose it after his 12 rounds of ABVD. He cut it really short and wore different hats all the time but it wasn't until he had, what they call HDT or High dose therapy, that he was completely bald. Don't even think about HDT though. That is for people who had their cancer come back after ABVD. the odds for curing HL with just ABVD are normally in the patients favor big time. Good luck. Get your hydration, suck on the ice chips and eat the popsicle to keep the mouth sores away.
I am stage III-B HL. I am just starting cycle 8 of ABVD. I did experience a little hair loss-more like slow growth. Shaved my head a few years back to support co-workers with breast cancer and kept the look, but the rest of me looks like a new chia pet that hasn't grown out yet. Got an appointment with radiation oncologist Friday. PET and CT scans have been good but with my age and stage my doc doesn't want to take chances. Hang in there!!
Hi Sharp: It seems we are on the same boat.... I was dx right before Christmas HL stage 2A, I am on ABVD and I just completed my 5th treatment. So far, a little nausea and moderate fatigue have been the side effects. About the hair loss.... I am a female, always had long hair and being bald was one of my first concerns. I really had the hope I wouldn't lose my hair until like my 2nd chemo when I started seeing big chunks coming off... It was hard but one day I just decided I would shave my head, so I got up, dress up nicely, put lots of make up on and ask my husband to do it.... and to my surprise I didn't even cry.... I have a wig but sometimes it isn't that comfortable to wear so most of the time I wear cute cotton hats/turbans...let me know if you need info about them.
I hope your treatment goes well and you have very little side effects...
Thank you everyone for the good and detailed reply....
As I mentioned before, I just got only one treatment for now and four days after the first chemo was just terrible....because I felt many side effects like nausea and excessive fatigue just like flu... My biggest handicap is that I have used a medicine which is called efexor for depression for a long time and my oncologist told me that I have to quit using it because it would affect chemo process. But my psychiatrist said I can freely use it and it has no side effects against ABVD.... And I still use it now.
By the way, I had my hair cut very short and I dont care to lose them anymore and I know that they'll come back as soon as the chemo finishes.
Hey guys who are on the same boat with me, I'm gonna take my second treatment on thursday the next week and I'm just little bit afraid of the side effects.... I just wonder something, does the side effects of treatment decrease after every new treatment or remain same?
Hi Sharp, I am sorry to hear you had a hard time with your first chemo. I guess it is true when they say everybody is a little different... for me, the main side effect after my first treatment was bone pain caused from the neulasta shot that I got the next day...fortunately during my 2nd chemo my nurse recommended Loratadine to control the pain (they don't know the reason this antiallergy med works for this kind of pain but it does). After that, my main side effects have been a little nausea (controled with Zofran) and awful fatigue wich became worse with every tx...Also, acid reflux wich started after my 4th session and some constipation.
Take care and I hope you have a better time after your 2nd one...
Sharp-
While I can't seem to find any direct contraindications of Effexor and ABVD, I also wouldn't expect to find any in the manufacturer's full prescribing information for Effexor, since most of that information comes from clinical trials, and it's unlikely they recruited chemo patients. I guess I'm a little concerned about your psych's opinion conflicting with your oncologist's opinion.
I can tell which way you're leaning on this, you've been on it a while and coming off it might be a bad idea right now, but there are lots of potential problems here, among them that you don't want anything affecting metabolism or blood movement (hemodynamics). There's just no telling what effects you may be experiencing as a result of the multiple drugs.
That said, I did read that some breast cancer patients were getting symptom relief from Effexor, namely in the form of ending hot flashes and night sweats, and that might go for some men with prostate cancer as well.
Still, I guess I would urge you to bring the issue up with your oncologist again. At the very least, say by the way I'm still taking Effexor, just thought I'd let you know, this is based on the advice of my psych, and you can let them argue it out. Or ask your pharmacist about possible interactions. Something. Because while it's likely nothing, you don't want it to be somehow compromising your treatment.
Hi Sharp. It has been a while since I was on. My 21 yr. old daughter was diagnosed in May with
Stage 2A Hodgkins. She had 6 cycles (12treatments) of Chemo followed by 13 days of radiation. Before she started her treatment we had her hair cut into a short BOB, Around her 2nd treatment hair started to fall out. There was hair on her pillow and on the bathroom floor. Following some treatments there was little hair loss while after others the loss would increase. She became mostly bald on the top but enough stragley hair on the sides and back that looked ok under a scarf or hat. Finally in October I shaved her head. It was so much easier to deal with. Before she finished her final chemo on 11/19 her hair started to grow back. Now she looks adorable in her short doo but she insists that she wants to grow it long again.
As for side effects, when they drew the blood before her 2nd chemo they found her white count was too low, so I had to give her injections of neupogen of her off weeks to boosst the count.After her 2nd treatment her face and arms turned red. This happened on about 6 occassions. She would also get a headache and nausea for 2-3 days after the treatment. Zolfran took care of the nauseau and tylenol for headache. She was never tired. She continued to worked. Her treatments were on Fridays so she had the weekend to relax.
To Ross, I talked to my oncologist again and explained all the things that my psychiatrist told me...At last, my oncologist accepted me to use effexor but with his control.
To everyone, I received two very good news today, one of them is my bone marrow result come back negative.....:)...and the other one is that I've had an appointment with my doctor today and taken my blood test results that I've drawn today...And my doctor said all the blood values are really good after my first chemo....
And now, I'm waiting for the second treatment and really wondering that if I'll experience the same side effects like my first one....
YAY to a clean bone marrow biopsy result!!! I know the excitement since I went through the same at the end of December.
Good luck for your second session, hope you have less side effects.
Sharp-
Congrats on the marrow and the blood tests, best of luck to you in the coming days. And thank you for discussing the Effexor with your oncologist, absolutely the best and right thing to do, and I'm glad you can continue to take it.
I had this treatment in 2002. I was already quite bald, but didn't lose any more hair really. I felt horribly sick after the first treatment, and almost threw up. That never happened again, you'll be pleased to hear. The treatment progressed quite unremarkably after that, aside from catching an infection once, needing an overnight stay in hospital, and a blood transfusion after another dose. I had radiotherapy to top it all off. I developed pulmonary fibrosis a couple of months after the end of the treatment. My doctor said I'd get used to it, and I have.
How often do you guys have your chemo AVBD treatments? My husband will be starting in the next 10 days and we have no idea how often you go for treatments?
For me, the treatment was once a fortnight. I think that's the standard, so it will probably be what your husband gets. My wife came with me for the first, which I really appreciated. But boy, is it boring after Day 1! Once the unknown was out of the way, I told her I could manage alone.
It takes around 3 - 4 hours usually. My hospital in Bristol, England, has those nice electric reclining chairs, so you can be as comfortable as possible, but I have a fairly low boredon threshold, I suppose. You can get up for a little stretch of the legs, dragging your drip stand with you, but make sure you have at least a newspaper and a good book - I brushed up my French whilst I was there.
A nurse inserts a canula in a vein, which for me was on the back of my hand. The treatment doesn't help your veins, so the nurse tried to start as far down my hand as possible, moving nearer to the wrist with each treatment. A bag of saline is attached, and all the drugs go through the one line. It hasn't left any lasting problems with hands or fingers.
Chemo involves a lot of fluid, mostly water, so this needs to be disposed of at some point during the treatment. One of the drugs turns your pee an alarming red colour temporarily, but this is normal, and nothing to worry about.
I went back to work part-time after the second treatment. I figured if I was well enough to get bored, I was well enough to work. Your doctor will let your husband know more.
Compared to some cancer treatments, it's a walk in the park. As I said above, I was nauseous after the first dose, but the anti-chuck up pill controlled it from then on. I learned to inject myself part-way through, as I had to have a growth hormone for a while. Your husband may not need this, but self-injection is straightforward, and preferable to daily hospital trips.
The clever thing is that the treatment usually works first time. It's over 9 years since I finished the treatment. I have pulmonary fibrosis that I didn't have before, but it's not a big deal, and doesn't happen often. I learned to fly after I recovered, and apart from catching colds easier than everryone else, I'm back to as normal as I was before.
I have chemo every other Wednesday. As Tony said the medications are given through an IV with saline solution but unlike him I had a surgery before starting treatment to install what it is called a "port". It is a small device the size of a coin that it is implanted under the skin below the collar bone and it is connected to the subclavia vein. The medications are injected through that device and it seems that it makes things much easier because the veins in your arms do not suffer irritation from the chemotherapy.
The next day after chemo I go back to receive a shot of a medication called Neulasta. This medication boost your immune system (to prevent infections). The shot is given in the arm and the main side effect in my case was body/bone pain like when you have the flu. My nurse recommended loratadine (an antiallergy medicine) to control it and since then it hasn't been that bad...
Tony K, thank you so much for the detailed info...
I have my treatment once a fortnight too and my doctor said 12 or 16 chemo treatment is gonna be taken in total.
Actually, I have some hesitation about the number of the total treatment. I think 16 chemo treatment is really too much in total. Does anyone have any idea regarding that?.. isn't it too much? is it?
Sharp - your doctor won't give you anything you don't need, surely? I had 6 cycles - ie 12 doses - but from what I can gather, this is an average, not the laid down number. The number depends on your stage. I think I was a 2, and I know it hadn't progressed south of the equator, so to speak, but I think I would have preferred one dose too many rather than one too few. I suppose you will have a CT scan soon, and youe doctor will make his mind up then. ABVD has been the standard treatment for 30 years or so, so the medical profession know a great deal of detail about its use and effects.
Having a bone marrow sample taken, by the way, was the least fun I ever had without trousers.