hey all hope ur all well I was wondering for some feed back. I have recentyly been diagnosied with head and neck small cell squamous head and neck cancer. My Oncologist is 95 percent cure rate so im optimistic of tthat outcome but said its going to been a rough 7 weeks. 6 weeks of chemo once a week and 35 radiation treatments to left side of left lymph node in neck. My trt doc said it would be ok for me to continue my 200 mg test C injection. I want to try and still keep going to the gym if my body allows it. Just wondering if anyone has gone through this and recommendations thanks again all and hope this post finds you all happy and good health.
Sorry about the news. Chin up, you got this.
I’ve been through it. I continued TRT and trained as best i could. Extremely tough to hold on to bodyweight. Obviously, keep protein up as best you can. Everything will be exhausting, do not stop.
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ty sir
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Not me, but trained two different men who went through it. Some of what we did to accommodate below.
Flexible training. We didn’t stick to a program, but instead trained based how they felt that day, which also wasn’t consistent days. When they had the energy, we met and trained the best we could. Taking up where we left off the last time. Intensity was lower, volume stayed about the same. Workouts took longer though. We decreased some of the compound work and did more insolation work just because of the strain on their nervous systems and ability to recover. I encouraged them both to walk more, which they both did. I believe they would walk about an hour a day outside and at least 4-5 days a week. Neither of them had appetites, so I encouraged them to always have protein shakes mixed and to sip on them all day. Tried really hard to keep protein up. Neither had aggressive cancers and eventually were back to normal life after treatments. I think keeping up their training to some degree helped with their mental state and gave them something to do and focus on.
That’s about all I remember. It was back when I actually worked at a gym, so almost 20 years ago.
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ty for info apprciate it
Sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I now have cancer as well (Multiple Myeloma) and will be beginning TRT tomorrow.
I will be making my own post for this and will be watching yours to see how you progress.
Best of luck to you for a cure.
What is your treatment for the cancer? I have the same and am undergoing immunotherapy. I am also on TRT.
I am on Revlimid 21 days on, 7 days off. Darzalex chemotherapy once a month. IVIG once a month, Xeralto blood thinner (I got a DVT in my right leg and had a pulmonary embolism). This is my maintenance now that I am done with 1 year of chemo and a successful bone marrow transplant.
I was successfully on TRT for several years prior to knowing that my real issues with fatigue and feeling like death was I was really dying. No Dr. caught I had myeloma. Never connected the complete anemia and other issues with cancer. I was able to mask my symptoms for a long time being on TRT until finally the cancer was unstoppable.
My mother currently has cancer and the chemo is brutal
The subtypes of chemo they give depends on the subtype of cancer but if your chemo is anything like hers you won’t be going to gym… you’ll be out of breath walking from one end of your house to the other…
I have squamous cell carcinoma originatted in left toncil removed ttoncils a month ago and found in left lymph node common treatment is 6 chemos with cisplatin and 35 radiation treatments with radio therapy arc machine so far so good oncologist says 95 percent cure rate
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I would love to talk to you in a private message and not distract this thread. Please let me know how you would be willing to do that as I am interested in your treatments, status etc.
Thanks
You can contact me through my e-mail address on my profile.
sure if I can help
Ok so I’m going to be honest with you
You have anaemia from the cancer right? This drug is likely going to make that much worse
My mother was on a different combo of cancer drugs that have a similar net effect on red cell count (causes myelosuppression)
If you need to take an agranulocyte colony stimulating factor know the bone pain from those can be quite severe.
Cisplatin also elicits a dose dependent neurotoxicity that usually manifests as painful peripheral neuropathy
The drug is also nephrotoxic, cardiotoxic etc.
My mother became so anaemic she would be huffing and puffing… totally out of breath just from standing and walking slowly around the kitchen
Cisplatin often induces nausea and vomiting. On the upside the worst of tbe effecrs generally occur in the days to week following an infusion
So you might be totally wiped out for a week and then bounce back a little bit before the next infusion but if you are anything like my aunt who died from lung cancer last year or my mother who is still on chemo each infusion will take a little bit more out of you.
Don’t push it… esp as we are dealing with cardiotoxicity, anaemia, neurotoxicity etc. Do what you are comfirtable with. My mother is currently going to gym once a week under the care of an exercise physiologist.
She also has ehlers danlos syndrome (complicating things further) and was very deconditioned prior to the treatment. The EDS means any strain on her body is amplified. She is also doing radiotherapy.
You may need pain medication. As stigmatised as they are… narcotics do work very well for cancer pain (even chronic cancer pain).
My mom needed them for the chemo and the agranulocyte colony stimulating factors… She is now off them (I think she was on oxycodone slow release and oxycodone instant release). Otherwise you have neuromodulators like gabapentin, lyrica (also addictive even if doctors say it isn’t), duloxetine, amytryptline, nortryptline.
There’s more of an arguement to try neuromodulators in the event you experience very painful peripheral neuropathy. If you are in America you might struggle with getting adequate pain management even if you have cancer… i’ve heard the situation over there is currently very cruel… impacting even terminally ill people in some states (varies tremendously from state to state)
Exercising will be dependent on how you feel on a given day, how much pain you are in, whether you develop cardiac autonomic dysfunction etc. Pushing through pain and suffering in this case is unadvisable
Hopefully you are one of the lucky ones that doesn’t experience moderate to severe pain on chemo.
Though some data suggests doing some exercise on cisplatin decreases or eliminates the muscle wasting you get on the drug.