How Cancer Treatment Can Affect Your Health

Your doctor recommend you treatment plan when cancer affects you. This may have meant surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, biologic therapy, hormone therapy or some combination of treatments. These treatments kill cancer cells, but during the process, healthy cells are also spoiled. In this blog you will learn about the side effects caused by different cancer treatment:

Surgery:

If your weight is lower than normal, you may need to gain weight before your surgery. In this resource, you will find suggestions for how to eat more protein and calories. This can help you to increase weight before surgery and also help you to repair afterward. If you are having throat, mouth, or stomach surgery, it can be hard for you to eat. You may need to get nutrition in other ways, such as through a vein, through a tube in your nose, or through a tube in your stomach or the upper part of your intestine.

Radiation:

Radiation therapy is cautiously planned so that it avoids as much healthy tissue as possible. However, there will always be some healthy tissue that is affected by this treatment and this will cause side effects. The side effects of radiation therapy depend on how much treatment you have and the area is being treated. Your treatment team will discuss with you what side effects you can expect and how to manage them properly.

Chemotherapy:

Chemotherapy kills cells that multiply quickly, such as cancerous cells. It also causes damage to fast-growing normal cells, including hair follicles, and cells that make up the tissues in your gut, mouth and bone marrow. The side effects of chemotherapy take place as a result of this damage. Chemotherapy in tablet form is tolerated well by most people and side effects tend to be very few and mild. Intravenous chemotherapy can have extra side effects, the type, and severity of which will vary from one person to another, depending on what chemotherapy is used and how a patient responds to it.

Immunotherapy:

Immunotherapy stimulates the immune system of your body to fight cancer cells. The Side effects with the treatment include nausea and vomiting, weight loss, sore mouth, dry mouth, diarrhea, changes in the taste of food, muscle aches, fatigue or fever.

Hormonal therapy:

Hormonal therapy uses medications that prevent your body from making some hormones or alter the way they work. Side effects include changes in water retention, appetite, weight gain, and nausea and vomiting.

Many factors determine whether you will have side effects and how bad they will be. These factors include the type of cancer you have, the type and length of treatment, the part of the body affected, and the dose of treatment. There is no doubt that side effects can be very horrible at times, but it’s good to memorize that most of them are reversible and temporary. It is necessary that you report any side-effects you are experiencing to your nurse or doctor because many of them can be treated successfully.