If the only way to treat your breast cancer is with chemotherapy, you may have not enough choices. But be aware that over 75% will end up with inflamed nerves afterwards. That nerve damage is from stripping the mylan that covers the nerve in a random pattern. The pattern of the loss is what shows the doctor that this is chemo damage instead of, for instance, multiple sclerosis.
Unfortunately it may still be the only game in town. You are now usually only offered chemo as a choice for after treatment. It still has good results for keeping the cancer from returning.
Since the chemo is a poison, designed to kill the damaged cells, it doesn’t have the ability to distinguish between good healthy cells and cancer cells, it kills everything in sight. It does work in most cases. The collateral damage to the good cells is something that will have to be dealt with for years afterwards.
There is less blood flow in the hands and feet than other parts of the body so often there will be nerve damage quicker there than anywhere else. These areas can hurt, tingle and finally become the elephant in the room.
In some cases, this damage will expand to the entire leg and arm. Then there has to be some ‘do whatever it takes’ to stop the pain on a rather daily basis. The patient is no longer fighting the cancer but will spend a large part of her time fighting the neuritis.
Now the attention turns to anti-inflammatory drugs to control the pain. These work in most cases unless the inflammation gets out of control and then it is hard to live with the pain caused by the damaged nerves.
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