I don't know if anyone else feels this way. The best way to describe how I feel is like having a hangover from drinking a lot the night before. My body just doesn't feel right. The doctors just tell me that I am in a very slow remission.
Since my treatments I have been diagnosis with Pancytopenia from having 2 bone marrow biospies. There is no treatment only if my hemoglobin goes very very low which would mean a bone marrow transplant. My lab are showing my red cells at 2.83 and platelets are 97. My white cells are 4.4 which is within the margins. It just doesn't seem like with these numbers I should feel the way I do. Yes, I agree to feel tried and week. I guess I am hoping that someone else out there could maybe relate to this.
Cancer fatigue is a well known side effect of treatment. The treatment also does a number on the immune system and some the the numbers will never return to to pre Tx levels.
There is no need for concern as your immune system will make a full recovery, if it hasn't already and part of the "new normal" are the the changes in your body chemistry and alteration of blood chemistry numbers.
Tammy, as Gary just told you, this is poart of our war. I don't like it either but accept it.
Tammy,
Have you had your thyroid checked? If not, you need a blood test to check your thyroid TSH level, T3 and T4 numbers. You also need to know what your TSH level was prior to radiation. The hospital that did you blood work prior and during radiation should have these numbers. Do not accept a reading that says you 'are within range'. You need to get your TSH level back to what YOUR normal was before treatment. A tiny pill daily will do this. Hope this helps.
Take care,
Eileen
Yes they have checked my TSH, T3 and T4 and they were are in normal levels. I was hoping that would have been my problem. So frustrating....
Tammy,
The problem with the TSH levels is that they are very broad in the normal range so some find it's important to know what your pre Tx level was and try to get back to that level as opposed to just staying in the "range".
Tammy,
I'm 18 months out of treatment/surgery and struggle with fatigue. When I was on opiate pain medications it was much worse...crippling infact. Since getting off of all of the pain meds a month ago and resuming an exercise program it's helped the fatigue immensly.
Tammy
I too had accepted extreme fatigue and that hangover feeling as just the result of having so much radiation because my doctors (at a Comprehensive Cancer Center yet)kept insisting my thyroid levels were "within range". Here is my canned screed
[quote]Radiation very often damages the thyroid and leaves the patient cold and weak yet because there is controversy over what is the right TSH level with labs having a 5.5, a 4.5 or the most advanced ones in tune with the 21st Century, 3.0 as the highest acceptable level, it is very very hard to get a doctor to prescribe thyroid medication without pre TX baseline. I am a personal example since before TX, I had a TSH of 1.6 and after TX it shot up to 4.3 but no doctor would help me these last two years until I discovered blood tests done by a cardiologist that I got the results from the day after finding out I had cancer so I had paid no attention to the 1.6 TSH. With that, I have finally been started on one little pill that my endocrinologist thinks will bring back both energy and warmth.
I hope you have results of a pre TX TSH test
Disclaimer: I have a degree of Doctor of Law, NOT Medicine[/quote]
Also have them take a look at your B-12 levels. Mine was very low and I am now giving myself bi-weekly injections of B-12.
My B-12 was fine but she gave me a few shots to see if it would help with my energy level, but it didn't.
Charm2017 - Thank you for the info I am just now pulling out all my medical records ( lab) from before by Cancer and hoping to find my Thyroid levels. If just one little pill could help...Oh how great that would be to just feel alittle better. I will check back..
Well I couldn't find a previous TSH T3 or T4. So all I have is my one test done on 1/29/09 that shows the following.
TSH - 1.29 and the range is .04 - 4.59
T4 - 7.3 and the range is 4.5 - 12
My next appt. I will request to have another TSH etc. done
Actually Tammy, it may not be the thyroid with that level reading. I was a 1.6 before TX and you are near that now.
Are you getting enough calories & nutrition? Exercise also helps. All trite advice but still reliable
I just started making coffee again in the morning and putting it down my PEG tube and the caffeine is really helping.
Chronic fatigue post cancer TX is a hard beast to figure out even though it is so common amongst us. I do keep quite active but have to take naps - Hope some OCF family member here can be more helpful.
Charm
At 1.29 TSH, it doesn't sound like a thyroid problem, but that depends on what your 'old normal' was. If I get too low, I sometimes feel tired. Do you have all your blood tests from radiation? If not, I'd check with whoever has those records to see if they ran a TSH.
After radiation, the dietician put me on 500mg vitamin C a day, Zinc sulfate for taste and fast healing and a multivitamin. Are you taking any supplements? You might ask your doctor.
How is your diet and execise? If not good, has a dietician been consulted?
I hope you get to the bottom of this soon. That is too long to still be feeling exhausted.
Take care,
Eileen
If you had IMRT they would have programmed it to avoid the thyroid, if not then you may indeed have thyroid problems post Tx. This can be corrected with Synthroid or other thyroid medications. They will have to fiddle with it for a while to attain the proper balance.
Gary
My understanding was that my RO programmed the IMRT to give my thyroid as little radiation as possible, but that he could not avoid "collateral damage" to the thyroid entirely and still hit my tumor hard enough due its location and size.
However, it was a different story with the Cyberknife treatment 18 months later as that was precise enough to actually avoid my thyroid entirely. The cyberknife pictures were awesome, almost psychedelic with these amazingly thin blue beams - and the computer monitored it real time to adjust them on the fly. I had asked if we could do Cyberknife the first time around and my RO had indicated that the downside of it's pinpoint accuracy was that it was impractical for a tumor as big as mine had grown, hence the IMRT. Since we caught the recurrence early, cyberknife was not only an option, but according to him, the only one as the rest of my face, throat, neck and shoulders could not handle any more IMRT radiation.
Charm