What to do if nerve damage occurs after chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is an important way to treat cancer tumors. Chemotherapy can kill toxic cells and restore patients to health. However, chemotherapy also has significant side effects. While killing toxic cells, it can also damage normal cells. In reality, there are many patients who suffer from nerve damage due to chemotherapy, causing them to suffer pain. In the event of nerve damage, patients need to actively cooperate with treatment and receive good care.

What to do if you have nerve damage after chemotherapy

Chemotherapeutic drugs can cause central and peripheral neurotoxicity. Central nervous system toxicity can manifest as acute nonbacterial meningitis as well as chronic progressive hemiplegia, aphasia, cognitive impairment, and dementia. The drugs that can cause central nervous system toxicity mainly include methotrexate, cytarabine, high-dose ifosfamide and fluorouracil drugs. Peripheral neurotoxicity is the damage of drugs to peripheral nerve cells that lack the protection of the blood-brain barrier, including sensory and motor nerve damage. Sensory nerve damage can manifest as paresthesia, hypoesthesia, burning sensation, pain and numbness in the extremities. Motor nerve damage can manifest as muscle weakness and atrophy. If the autonomic nerves are affected, weakened bladder tone, constipation and even paralytic intestinal obstruction may occur. Drugs with peripheral neurotoxicity mainly include taxanes, platinums and vinblastines.

The occurrence and severity of neurotoxicity are significantly related to the cumulative dose and dose intensity of the drug. Currently, the main method to reduce and control peripheral neurotoxicity is to control the cumulative dose and reduce the dose intensity. The neurotoxicity caused by chemotherapy drugs can usually be gradually recovered after drug discontinuation, and can be assisted by neurotrophic drugs and physical therapy.

Do chemotherapy drugs cause nerve damage?

There are many anticancer drugs with neurotoxicity, but in the past the incidence of neurotoxicity in these anticancer drugs was not high. The reasons are: blood toxicity and gastrointestinal toxicity have already occurred before the dose at which neurotoxicity occurs; most anticancer drugs are water-soluble and have large molecular weights, making it difficult for them to pass through the blood-brain barrier.

With the development of drugs such as G-CSF and antiemetics, changes in regimens, the combination of multiple drugs, high-dose chemotherapy, the combination of radiotherapy and immunotherapy with chemotherapy, and the use of new anticancer drugs, the incidence of neurotoxicity has increased and new neurotoxicities have been discovered.

Currently, there is a lack of effective treatment drugs for neurotoxicity, and the main treatment methods are dosage reduction, drug discontinuation and symptomatic treatment. Therefore, it is very important to be familiar with the toxic and side effects of drugs and listen to the patient's complaints.

Be aware of the toxic and side effects of chemotherapy drugs and pay attention to them before chemotherapy. First, enhance the patient's immunity and take traditional Chinese medicine that can deeply reduce the toxic and side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy: medical-grade Ganoderma lucidum spore powder, reverse the multidrug resistance of tumor cells, improve the effect of anti-tumor drugs in killing tumors, and protect against damage caused by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

How to deal with nerve damage after chemotherapy

A large number of clinical practices have proved that high-dose radiotherapy and chemotherapy for patients in the middle and late stages, or chemotherapy again for patients who have developed drug resistance, can only make the weak life more critical and accelerate the death of the patient. Chemotherapy drugs often fail to distinguish between right and wrong and "fight against friend and foe". While killing tumor cells, they also kill normal cells in the human body. Often after chemotherapy, the patient's body collapses.

Generally, it is a complication after chemotherapy. Neurological toxicity is the most common toxic and side effect of oxaliplatin, with an incidence of almost 100%. It manifests as numbness of the extremities, tingling pain, and muscle spasms. The symptoms are particularly severe along the infusion vein area. In severe cases, it can cause laryngeal spasm and endanger life. Preventive and control measures: Promote the excretion of drugs. Taking measures can promote the rapid excretion of drugs and help prevent further aggravation of toxicity. Keep warm, avoid cold stimulation within 3 days after taking the medicine, do not eat cold food, and do not brush your teeth or wash your face with cold water.

Numbness of the hands and feet is an independent disease caused by damage to the motor nerves of the limbs. It may be caused by chemotherapy surgery that damages the nerves. The tiny blood vessels around the motor nerve fibers are blocked, compressing the motor fibers, causing serious damage to the motor nerve fibers, and reducing the conduction ability and conduction speed of the nerves, resulting in numbness of the hands and feet. In severe cases, it can develop into limb paralysis, muscle atrophy and other painful symptoms.

After we understand what to do about nerve damage after chemotherapy, we must also have some understanding of how to solve the problem. In current medicine, chemotherapy is the choice for patients with mid- to late-stage cancer, but if drug resistance occurs, it will make the patient's life more serious and even cause the patient to die quickly, so we should have some understanding of how to solve the problem.