Monday, January 18, 2016

Nerve damage from cancer treatment

If cancer doesn't kill us, sometimes its treatment leaves us with many more problems. One of these is neuropathy. A new study was to be announced over the weekend at ASCO in San Francisco where several hundred women were studied after cancer treatment.

"At an average of six years after cancer diagnosis, 45 percent of them still had symptoms of nerve damage, such as loss of feeling in their hands and feet.

These symptoms were associated with much poorer physical functioning and difficulty doing daily tasks, such as cooking and shopping. The women with symptoms also had changes in their walking patterns and were nearly twice as likely to fall as those without such symptoms, the researchers discovered."

And the best part is:

"While there are no effective treatments for this side effect, rehabilitative exercise programs may preserve physical functioning and mobility in the presence of neuropathy to help prevent falls and resulting injuries..."

I love the part about new effective treatments. Maybe we need cancer treatments with fewer side effects.

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

I hate that they measured things and like "cooking" and "shopping" ... it is such a horribly sexist statement! Since our society does not value that type of work over office work or work outside of the home, it devalues the impact that neuropathy has ...

I am hugely impacted by neuropathy ... it means that after hiking for 45 minutes I'm in pain ... studies don't seem to care about the impact on people who are high functioning or already doing a lot of exercise ...

Sorry, but I hate that they use those examples. If it were men suffering neuropathy, they would not have said "cooking" and "shopping" ...

Rohan Khandelwal said...

yes cancer treatment leave a bad impact on body after treatment however of you are looking for best breast cancer treatment in delhi there are many options available.

I Started a New Blog

I started this blog when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. Blogging really helped me cope with my cancer and its treatment. Howe...