› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Need remedies for persistent nausea
- This topic has 18 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 11 months ago by
Linny.
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- March 3, 2012 at 2:56 am
My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 in April 2011, with mets in both lungs, liver, spleen and femur. His original primary was on his back, and excised 11 years prior. He was NED for 11 years; then an unrelated screening showed stage 4 disease. He presented with just a little nausea and fatigue. Since there are no melanoma specialists in Sacramento, we traveled to San Francisco and interviewed doctors at UCSF, NCMC and CPMC, and ended up enrolling in a clinical trial at UCSF with Dr.
My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 in April 2011, with mets in both lungs, liver, spleen and femur. His original primary was on his back, and excised 11 years prior. He was NED for 11 years; then an unrelated screening showed stage 4 disease. He presented with just a little nausea and fatigue. Since there are no melanoma specialists in Sacramento, we traveled to San Francisco and interviewed doctors at UCSF, NCMC and CPMC, and ended up enrolling in a clinical trial at UCSF with Dr. Daud. Since Thomas is BRAF/NRAS/CKIT negative, and was 72 at the time of diagnosis, our options were somewhat limited to either Yervoy or the clinical trial. We chose the clinical trial, which is axitinib + carboplatin + paclitaxel. He endured 8 rounds of chemo, and has since been on a continuous, maintenance dose of axitinib since November 22, 2011. His last 5 PET/CT scans show "stable disease" although we do not consider this a victory, as his quality of life is horrible. On a nausea scale of 1 – 10, with 1 being very mild and 10 meaning vomiting, his nausea usually hovers around a 2 – 3, but has escalated recently, even though he is considered stable. For the past few weeks, his nausea maintains at about a "5", and he gets little relief from all the usual anti-emetics. To date, he has tried: zofram, Emend, compazine, phenergan, reglan, ativan, benadryl, scopolamine patch, Sancuso patch, medical marijuana, acupuncture, fresh ginger tea, candied ginger, licorice root tea, acupressure wrist bands. Some of these worked to alleviate the post-chemo nausea, but the only thing that gives him any relief at the moment is a combination of ativan+reglan+benadryl. However, he keeps building up a tolerance to the drugs and we increase the dose (per Doctor's orders) which gives him a little relief. Dr. Daud believes that most of the nausea is due to his liver disesase: approximately 50% of his liver is involved and it is not detoxifying his food properly, resulting in the nausea. I feed him almost exclusively a very healthy, 95% organic diet, to keep pesticides and additives out of his system. Direct liver intervention, via chemo embolization, or other treatments isn't an option because of the size of his liver mets; it would require a lot of chemo which could damage the remaining healthy liver tissue. We are considering switching to a PD1 trial, but as it hasn't opened up yet at UCSF, we are waiting. Does anyone have any other remedies for persistent nausea that we haven't tried? Any and all ideas, both conventional and alternative, would be welcomed.
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- March 3, 2012 at 4:52 am
Welcome to our forum. Thanks for filling in the details on the profile page.
Sorry to read of your husband's situation. I feel that the biggest immediate concern is the condition of his liver. As he currently has stable disease, I wonder if surgery on the liver mets has been considered? A surgical oncologist would need to be consulted about this.
I don't know if this info about chemo and nausea will be of any assistance: http://www.chemocare.com/managing/nausea_vomiting__chemotherapy.asp
Hope this helps
Frank from Australia
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- March 3, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Hi, Frank, and thanks for your input. Surgery on the liver mets has been ruled out for two reasons. The first is the size of the mets: the 2 largest are each about 10 x 14 cm, and surgery is considered pretty risky at that size. The second reason is that he is only stable because of the trial drugs, and he would have to be off-trial to be eligible for surgery, and being off-treatment could potentially cause further metastatis. I'll review the link you provided – thank you – and ask our doctors about some of these meds that we haven't tried.
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- March 3, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Hi, Frank, and thanks for your input. Surgery on the liver mets has been ruled out for two reasons. The first is the size of the mets: the 2 largest are each about 10 x 14 cm, and surgery is considered pretty risky at that size. The second reason is that he is only stable because of the trial drugs, and he would have to be off-trial to be eligible for surgery, and being off-treatment could potentially cause further metastatis. I'll review the link you provided – thank you – and ask our doctors about some of these meds that we haven't tried.
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- March 3, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Hi, Frank, and thanks for your input. Surgery on the liver mets has been ruled out for two reasons. The first is the size of the mets: the 2 largest are each about 10 x 14 cm, and surgery is considered pretty risky at that size. The second reason is that he is only stable because of the trial drugs, and he would have to be off-trial to be eligible for surgery, and being off-treatment could potentially cause further metastatis. I'll review the link you provided – thank you – and ask our doctors about some of these meds that we haven't tried.
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- March 3, 2012 at 4:52 am
Welcome to our forum. Thanks for filling in the details on the profile page.
Sorry to read of your husband's situation. I feel that the biggest immediate concern is the condition of his liver. As he currently has stable disease, I wonder if surgery on the liver mets has been considered? A surgical oncologist would need to be consulted about this.
I don't know if this info about chemo and nausea will be of any assistance: http://www.chemocare.com/managing/nausea_vomiting__chemotherapy.asp
Hope this helps
Frank from Australia
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- March 3, 2012 at 4:52 am
Welcome to our forum. Thanks for filling in the details on the profile page.
Sorry to read of your husband's situation. I feel that the biggest immediate concern is the condition of his liver. As he currently has stable disease, I wonder if surgery on the liver mets has been considered? A surgical oncologist would need to be consulted about this.
I don't know if this info about chemo and nausea will be of any assistance: http://www.chemocare.com/managing/nausea_vomiting__chemotherapy.asp
Hope this helps
Frank from Australia
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- March 4, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Sorry to hear of your husband's predicament. I'm also very prone to nausea and what has been a blessing for me is a wristband called Relief Band. It looks like a watch and what it does is generate a pulse on your wrist that blocks the nausea signal between your brain and your stomach. You can change the strength of the pulse depending on how bad you feel. I use it for travel but it was originally created for chemotherapy patients to help them deal with their nausea. It's the only thing that helps me. The band has been remarketed and is now called "Reletex". The relief you get is instantaneous. I've seen that on people I've loaned it to.
The most dramatic moment with it came when my sister was dealing with some post surgical nausea. She was already wearing the band at one of the lower settings but was starting to get sick and ran to the toilet to vomit. She was kneeling and beginning to heave when I grabbed her hand, cranked the band up to its highest strength. When she lifted her head up out of the bowl and gave me a WTF look I knew it had worked. Her nausea was gone. When I tell you instantaneous, I'm not kidding you.
This is one web site I found where you can get one of these bands. You will need the doc to write a prescription for it:
http://www.aeromedix.com/Reletex-Anti-Nausea-Device.html
You don't have to get it from here. Feel free to do more research on it and discuss it with your doctor
Linda.
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- March 4, 2012 at 11:16 pm
The stretchy fabric ones are OK but I like this one better because you can vary the strength of the pulse. You need just one.
The watch face part of it goes in the same place that the little ball of the stretchy ones goes. The pulse it emits causes a tingle that goes from your wrist, through your palm, and up the middle finger. If you don't feel the pulse doing that you move the watch face of the band around until you feel it. You will need to apply some conductivity gel to the wrist to sufficiently amplify the pulse. Conductivity gell is the same stuff that's applied to an area whenever you get an ultrasound.
I can't stress enough how much of a lifesaver this has been for me when I travel.
Linda
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- March 4, 2012 at 11:16 pm
The stretchy fabric ones are OK but I like this one better because you can vary the strength of the pulse. You need just one.
The watch face part of it goes in the same place that the little ball of the stretchy ones goes. The pulse it emits causes a tingle that goes from your wrist, through your palm, and up the middle finger. If you don't feel the pulse doing that you move the watch face of the band around until you feel it. You will need to apply some conductivity gel to the wrist to sufficiently amplify the pulse. Conductivity gell is the same stuff that's applied to an area whenever you get an ultrasound.
I can't stress enough how much of a lifesaver this has been for me when I travel.
Linda
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- March 4, 2012 at 11:16 pm
The stretchy fabric ones are OK but I like this one better because you can vary the strength of the pulse. You need just one.
The watch face part of it goes in the same place that the little ball of the stretchy ones goes. The pulse it emits causes a tingle that goes from your wrist, through your palm, and up the middle finger. If you don't feel the pulse doing that you move the watch face of the band around until you feel it. You will need to apply some conductivity gel to the wrist to sufficiently amplify the pulse. Conductivity gell is the same stuff that's applied to an area whenever you get an ultrasound.
I can't stress enough how much of a lifesaver this has been for me when I travel.
Linda
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- March 5, 2012 at 3:34 am
Here is the Reletex web site with more detailed information about the band:
Linda
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- March 5, 2012 at 3:34 am
Here is the Reletex web site with more detailed information about the band:
Linda
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- March 5, 2012 at 3:34 am
Here is the Reletex web site with more detailed information about the band:
Linda
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- March 4, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Sorry to hear of your husband's predicament. I'm also very prone to nausea and what has been a blessing for me is a wristband called Relief Band. It looks like a watch and what it does is generate a pulse on your wrist that blocks the nausea signal between your brain and your stomach. You can change the strength of the pulse depending on how bad you feel. I use it for travel but it was originally created for chemotherapy patients to help them deal with their nausea. It's the only thing that helps me. The band has been remarketed and is now called "Reletex". The relief you get is instantaneous. I've seen that on people I've loaned it to.
The most dramatic moment with it came when my sister was dealing with some post surgical nausea. She was already wearing the band at one of the lower settings but was starting to get sick and ran to the toilet to vomit. She was kneeling and beginning to heave when I grabbed her hand, cranked the band up to its highest strength. When she lifted her head up out of the bowl and gave me a WTF look I knew it had worked. Her nausea was gone. When I tell you instantaneous, I'm not kidding you.
This is one web site I found where you can get one of these bands. You will need the doc to write a prescription for it:
http://www.aeromedix.com/Reletex-Anti-Nausea-Device.html
You don't have to get it from here. Feel free to do more research on it and discuss it with your doctor
Linda.
-
- March 4, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Sorry to hear of your husband's predicament. I'm also very prone to nausea and what has been a blessing for me is a wristband called Relief Band. It looks like a watch and what it does is generate a pulse on your wrist that blocks the nausea signal between your brain and your stomach. You can change the strength of the pulse depending on how bad you feel. I use it for travel but it was originally created for chemotherapy patients to help them deal with their nausea. It's the only thing that helps me. The band has been remarketed and is now called "Reletex". The relief you get is instantaneous. I've seen that on people I've loaned it to.
The most dramatic moment with it came when my sister was dealing with some post surgical nausea. She was already wearing the band at one of the lower settings but was starting to get sick and ran to the toilet to vomit. She was kneeling and beginning to heave when I grabbed her hand, cranked the band up to its highest strength. When she lifted her head up out of the bowl and gave me a WTF look I knew it had worked. Her nausea was gone. When I tell you instantaneous, I'm not kidding you.
This is one web site I found where you can get one of these bands. You will need the doc to write a prescription for it:
http://www.aeromedix.com/Reletex-Anti-Nausea-Device.html
You don't have to get it from here. Feel free to do more research on it and discuss it with your doctor
Linda.
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