Myths About Chemotherapy You Should Know
Once the word "chemo" is dropped in front of people, their minds start going wild. They look for advice from everywhere they can get. And when that happens, everyone seems to have incomplete secondhand knowledge because they know someone who has undergone chemotherapy treatment. Along with all the tips and expressions of sympathy, clichés often come into mind regarding cancer and chemo.
Statements like "my colleague was throwing up every day," "I know someone who was completely bedridden for four months," or "my mother was a completely different person after she had cancer" often stay on your mind for the longest. But what about those clichés which apply to everyone?
Instead of asking their acquaintances, they should seek an expert's help. Accounts of experiences matter but an expert’s guidance can help a patient go a long way.
Myths You Might Have Heard About Chemo
Take everything you read on web forums with a grain of salt. You should only trust information from your doctor from your cancer hospital, instead of taking advice from random people on the internet. Your doctor knows what is best for you, not strangers online telling you that they know better. What matters most is listening to your body and working with what works for you, not dwelling on things that don't.
Statements like "my colleague was throwing up every day," "I know someone who was completely bedridden for four months," or "my mother was a completely different person after she had cancer" often stay on your mind for the longest. But what about those clichés which apply to everyone?
Instead of asking their acquaintances, they should seek an expert's help. Accounts of experiences matter but an expert’s guidance can help a patient go a long way.
Myths You Might Have Heard About Chemo
- Nausea: When a cancer patient is shown in a TV show who’s undergoing chemotherapy treatment, you can expect to see one or more vomiting scenes. Sometimes, vomiting and chemo seem to go hand in hand, but that isn't always how they play out. This is usually because certain substances in your body (such as chemotherapy medications) stimulate the "vomiting complex" part of your brain and cause nausea and vomiting. Fortunately, most forms of chemotherapy come with medication explicitly designed to prevent or minimize this side effect.
- Energy Loss: It depends on the type of chemo, the individual and how they feel daily. Some people need to stay in bed for weeks, but more often, you'll hear that treatments in any cancer hospital today are so finely tuned that side effects are less harsh than they were ten years ago. That means you'll feel less tired and recover faster. There are many recorded cases where women would continue to go on with their lives on good days. And there are some exceptions where people go to work every day as usual during treatments.
Take everything you read on web forums with a grain of salt. You should only trust information from your doctor from your cancer hospital, instead of taking advice from random people on the internet. Your doctor knows what is best for you, not strangers online telling you that they know better. What matters most is listening to your body and working with what works for you, not dwelling on things that don't.