Introduction Chemotherapy is a treatment that uses medicine to kill cancer cells. Although chemotherapy medicines kill cancer cells, they can also kill some normal types of cells, including blood-forming cells, hair follicles, and cells in the mouth, throat, and digestive tract. This causes side effects. The specific side effects of chemotherapy depend on the types of medicines used. They also depend on the child having the treatment, as different children can react differently to the same medicine. Most of the side effects of chemotherapy go away once treatment is finished. Until your child's treatment is finished, it is important to work closely with your child's team of health care providers and take an active role in managing your child's side effects at home. There are things …show more content…
Mouth or throat sores. Tingling, pain, or numbness. Dry, sensitive, itchy, or sore skin. Headache or stiff neck. Confusion, anxiety, or mood swings. How can I help manage my child's side effects? Here are some ways to help manage your child's side effects. Medicines Give your child over-the-counter and prescription medicines only as told by your child’s health care provider. Talk with your child's health care provider before giving your child vitamins, supplements, and over-the-counter medicines. Some can interfere with chemotherapy medicines. If medicines were prescribed to treat side effects, make sure you know: How to give these medicines. Which side effects to look for. Activity Make sure your child gets plenty of rest. Allow your child to return to normal activities as told by the health care provider. Ask the health care provider what activities are safe. Have your child avoid strenuous activities for as long as told by the health care provider. Eating and drinking Work with a nutrition expert to make sure your child eats well at home. Have your child drink enough fluid to keep urine clear or pale yellow. Use mouth rinse only as told by your child's health care
Pediatric oncology has been so very rewarding in many ways, but also so very cruel in a few ways. The good days are great, but the sad days are heartbreaking. But beyond the death and the suffering, there is a whole other layer of
Chemotherapy is the treatment of a tumor with chemical agents to reduce mass or eradicate a tumor completely. There are certain mechanisms by which chemotherapy inhibits cancer. The first mechanism is cell death by cytotoxicity. Some chemical agents in certain amounts are toxic to cells. The cells die due to the toxic...
The medication given to the children is a trial and error situation. The right drug could take years to find. The children taking this drug feel like test subjects when their pediatrician/psychotherapists must monitor them for compliance to the medication. Side effects differ from each individual, ranging from nervous breakdowns, inadequacy, mania, delusions, physical harm, self harm and possible attempted suicide. These symptoms can be treated with even more medication. Other side effects include: headache, stomach ache, dry mouth, constipation, gas, weight loss/gain, and acne. These symptoms might go away or are tolerable. New symptoms are hard to determine whether or not they are due from a new illness, the drugs, or just natural hormone development.
Most side effects go away after a while, but not always. Some common side effects are nausea, loss of appetite, headaches, dry mouth, dizziness, moodiness, trouble sleeping, and tics. If you change the times of when you take your medicine or what you eat with it then that can cause more side effects. The medication should be taken with food and you should eat throughout the day and drink plenty of fluids. Depending upon your side effects and the results from your medication, the doctor might change
...essive episodes (CareNotes). As chemo is administered, patients may aquire other issues, such as a loss in appitite, less energy, sores in the mouth, pain throughout the body, an increased heartbeat, coughing or breathing issues, and confusion (CareNotes). According to CareNotes, patients must stay away from people that are sick, due to a decreased immune system, and they must drink a lot of water to stay hydrated.
Steen, Grant R. and Joseph Mirro. Childhood Cancer: A Handbook From St.Jude Children's Research Hospital . Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publisher, 2000.
Kids are meant to be happy, play outside, go to school, and have fun. They aren’t meant to sit in hospitals, losing weight by the pound, carrying around IV poles filled with poison. It’s ridiculous and immature that we don’t have a cure for childhood cancer. The only “treatment” that we have is chemotherapy- a chemical that seems to help fight off cancer. Chemo doesn’t just fight off cancer cells though- it fights off healthy cells in your blood, mouth, digestive system, and hair follicles. The most frustrating thing about childhood cancer is that only 4% of federal funding is exclusively dedicated to childhood cancer research. It is true that more adults get diagnosed with cancer than kids, but does that mean that adults are 96% more important than children? The average age of diagnosis for an adult with cancer is age 67, and the average number of years lost is 15. 15 years are definitely many years, but not that many compared to the average number of years lost for a child- 71. Also, age 67 is a lot older than the average age of diagnoses for a child- age 6. At least the adults get to grow up and have the ability to even have cancer- some of these kids can’t even get through a fifth of their lives.
No matter who it happens to, any type of cancer is heart-breaking. However, one’s heart seems to crack a little bit deeper when you hear a child has been diagnosed. Several forms of cancer can arise during childhood. The most common is acute lymphoblastic/lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). In fact, it is so common between the ages 0-14, that people refer to it as childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Kanwar, 2013). .
Chemotherapy also known as chemo is a type of cancer treatment that consists of drugs that are used to kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy is a very widely used method of curing cancer, it cures cancer by slowing down or completely stopping the splitting or growth of cancer cells. Normal cells are different from cancer cells. Cancer cells are cells that are not stopping to grow and continue to split continuously without stopping . Normal cells eventually stop their own growth but these cancer cells are very different, they won’t stop growing.
Radiation therapy has been an incredible tool in effectively ridding people of cancer. Children make up an immense part of that community, and the process can carry challenges that these children are not equipped to deal with. Radiation therapy is an effective form of cancer treatment but can convey a heavy toll upon a child; is the treatment comprehensible and do the risks outweigh the benefits? Many aspects of a child’s life can impact the type and the amount of treatment they are able to receive. For an example; socioeconomic factors play a main role in what kind of radiation therapy they may receive or if they are able to receive any treatment at all.
When one hears the word “cancer”, thoughts about how their previous life is about to change cloud the mind, but when one hears the word cancer for their child, it is a whole different outlook; the affects of childhood cancer are not only taken on by the patients, but also by their families; the affects can range from emotionally to physically, socially to financially, and even educationally. “Childhood cancer is considered rare, especially compared with adults. Still it’s the leading cause of death in children pre-adolescent, school-aged children” (Report: Childhood Cancer Rates Continue to Rise, but Treatment Helps Drive Down Deaths). Around 12,000 children in the United States are diagnosed with cancer every year and around one in five children that are diagnosed with cancer will die.
Even when they are finished their chemotherapy treatments they may still experience this nausea for months or even for years all due to this learned response believed to be caused by classical
What exactly is Chemotherapy and why would it also kill “good” cells? Cancer could be described as the disease that sends cells out of control, rapidly multiplying the cells, until it harms the body. Chemotherapy is an effective drug treatment intended to treat individuals with various forms of cancer. Generally, this type of treatment is nonspecific, and non-molecular that uses chemical agents to break down all dividing cells. Chemotherapy, or chemo for short, destroys cancer cells, and can also cease the reproduction or spreading of these cells. Despite having apparent benefits, this type of treatment comes at a cost, presenting several disadvantages and side effects. Chemotherapy comes with a heavy burden, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, anemia, infections, and fatigue is a few of the short-term side effects. This analysis examines chemotherapy as a type of cancer treatment, as well as evaluating complimentary and alternative medicines.
...ormal functioning brain cells. Chemotherapy is one of the most common forms of treatment for many cancers including brain cancer. Chemotherapy uses drugs designed to “kill” the cancer cells. Chemotherapy is very effective at doing so but in the process can damage normal cells. Side effects of chemotherapy include fatigue, hair loss and mouth sores. There are more less common treatments such as hyperthermia (heat treatment), immunotherapy (insertion of immune cells that are intended to kill certain cancer cells) and steroids.