Hello,

My friend is two weeks into radiation and chemo. He had the first dose of cisplatin two weeks ago and tolerated it pretty well, with only mild nausea for a couple of days. In the last couple of days he is experiencing a lot of nausea, making it harder to eat. We are talking to the doctors to sort out the source--the radiation, the cisplatin from two weeks ago, or other drugs he is taking (saligen for dry mouth, protonix for acid reflux). If anyone has any experience with this, I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

Thank you,

Lawrence

Hi Lawrence: my husband just had his 2nd dose of cisplatin....they are giving him Ativan, Zofran and Compazine for nausea and vomiting.....these work pretty well, but we have to stay on top of it and not miss any doses. He is having a tougher time with the chemo tx than he did with the first, but thankfully nausea is not an issue. He is also receiving IMRT...it is difficult to tell what is causing some of the syptoms I know, but I Hope this info helps. Hang in there!

Michelle

Hi Lawrence: my husband just had his 2nd dose of cisplatin....they are giving him Ativan, Zofran and Compazine for nausea and vomiting.....these work pretty well, but we have to stay on top of it and not miss any doses. He is having a tougher time with the chemo tx than he did with the first, but thankfully nausea is not an issue. He is also receiving IMRT...it is difficult to tell what is causing some of the syptoms I know, but I Hope this info helps. Hang in there!

Michelle

Hi Lawrence,

If it makes you feel any better my husband had his first dose of cisplatin last Tuesday and by that night was vomiting violently. He did that through Thursday night. Friday he was a little better but very very weak. He finally came home from the hospital Saturday and only ate for the first time since Tuesday tonight.

We really could not find a drug to help with the nausea at first. The zofran gave him a horrible headache. He is now on compazine and it seems to help a little.

We are in our first week. We start week 2 tomorrow. He has had radiation also but the cisplatin seems to have really gotten him. He is still very tired. He only gets up from the bed for brief moments.

I got him to drink a Boost chocolate drink today which he liked and I am hoping to use that to bring up his calorie intake. Today, the doctor recommended that I give him some gatorade. That made a huge difference. It really seemed to help him perk up.

For the dry mouth issue I found at Walgreens something called StopperZ which is a spray that he can spray in his mouth as often as he wants. It has a little mint in it to refresh his breath. He says that it seems to help well. I also read on this board to put a humidifier in the room so I did that also. Both seemed to help tremendously with the dry mouth.

Good luck to you. It seems that we will be learning this journey together.

Cindy

I am reminded that I found putting oil of peppermint on my upper lip, silly as it sounds, helped a great deal with nausea. Have no idea why it works, maybe all mental, but it did and that is all I cared about at the time. This was for the cisplatin I had.