Multiple Myeloma an incurable disease, but I have spent the last 25 years in remission using a blend of conventional oncology and evidence-based nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle therapies from peer-reviewed studies that your oncologist probably hasn't told you about.
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“The prevalence of chemotherapy-induced neurotoxicity (CIN) varies from 19% to more than 85%, with the highest reported for platinum compounds (70–100%) and taxanes (11–87%) [4].”
Hi. My name is David Emerson. I am a long-term multiple myeloma survivor. I’ve been struggling with various forms of CIN since I completed my autologous stem cell transplant in late 1995. Actually, I think I began to notice symptoms several years following my ASCT but my memory is hazy as to what symptoms began, when.
I didn’t understand my symptoms at the time but lower body weakness and chemobrain were early signs of chemotherapy-induced neurotoxicity. This post is dedicated to the full spectrum of CIN symptoms-
My goal in researching and writing this post is to try to reach out to any cancer survivors who recognize symptoms discussed below that may apply to them. Please read all the way to the bottom of this post.
While my chemobrain has improved greatly, I can only say that my lower body weakness has almost stabilized. I can’t say that I’ll be running a marathon anytime soon.
Understanding Chemotherapy-Induced Neurotoxicity
Chemotherapy agents, while designed to target rapidly dividing cancer cells, can inadvertently affect normal cells, particularly those with high metabolic rates. This includes neurons and glial cells within the central and peripheral nervous systems. Consequently, patients may experience a range of neurological symptoms, which can be acute, subacute, or chronic in nature.
Types of Chemotherapy-Induced Neurotoxicity
Mechanisms of Chemotherapy-Induced Neurotoxicity
The precise mechanisms underlying CIN are multifaceted and not entirely elucidated. However, several key factors contribute to its development:
Mitigation and Management of Chemotherapy-Induced Neurotoxicity
Nerve Conduction therapies that I’ve tried. As I mentioned above, I can’t boast of any amazing cures. Only moderate improvements.
Are you a cancer survivor experiencing any of the symptoms of chemotherapy-induced neurotoxicity? Let me know- David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com.
Thanks,
David Emerson
“Chemotherapy agents used in the standard treatments for many types of cancer are neurotoxic and can lead to lasting sensory and motor symptoms that compromise day-to-day movement functions in cancer survivors. To date, the details of movement disorders associated with chemotherapy are known largely through self-reported symptoms and functional limitations. There are few quantitative studies of specific movement deficits, limiting our understanding of dysfunction, as well as effective assessments and interventions…
Chemotherapy agents used in the standard treatments for many types of cancer—including
exhibit neurotoxic adverse effects. Depending on individual compounds, chemotherapy can damage the nervous system via various mechanisms…
These adverse effects are commonly referred to as chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy or neurotoxicity (CIPN). Although the ‘P’ in CIPN is included to describe damage to the peripheral nervous system, there is also evidence of central neurotoxicity [2, 3].
To acknowledge the central involvement that is not captured by peripheral neuropathy, we adopted CIN as chemotherapy-induced neurotoxicity for this review…
Sensory symptoms associated with chemotherapy are most common and may include:
Motor symptoms may include hyporeflexia, weakness, and muscle cramps. Autonomic symptoms, although less common, may include dizziness, hearing loss, and constipation [5, 6]. CIN symptoms can present immediately or progress after several cycles of treatment, and their severity usually increases with drug accumulation…
These symptoms often improve over time after treatment cessation but can persist for years in a subset of patients, limiting their quality of life across the entire cancer illness trajectory [7,8,9,10]. A major issue associated with these sensory and motor symptoms is compromised movement function that contributes to functional impairments in day-to-day tasks [11, 12]…
This evidence suggests that cancer survivors with CIN are unstable in standing…
As a compensatory strategy, cancer survivors increase the weight of the visual and vestibular systems, but the summarized evidence indicates that this strategy compensates incompletely for the deficits in the somatosensory system during static standing…
Falls are common in cancer survivors. It is estimated that about 30% of cancer survivors fall every year [48], and individuals with CIN symptoms are 1.7–1.8 times more likely to fall than the asymptomatic individuals [7, 49]…
Similar to postural instability, this impaired gait pattern was shown to be associated with CIN-related neuropathy…
Overall, cancer survivors with chemotherapy-induced neurotoxicity have been shown to present with increased postural sway, conservative gait patterns, and suboptimal hand function, but the current understanding of CIN-related movement function changes is far from comprehensive…
There are currently no effective treatments for CIN. Many early reports suggest a possible beneficial effect of exercise (see reviews [11, 78, 79]). However, most exercise studies took a multimodal approach…
“The authors also found few studies that tracked long-term peripheral neuropathy, which may leave physicians and patients uninformed about the condition, according to the study…
“The most striking finding from the review was how little data was out there,” Dr Melnikow said. “And these studies report a wide range of frequency for peripheral neuropathy, from as low as 11% to more than 80% of patients at 1 to 3 years after treatment…”
“Many widely used chemotherapy drugs including:
may cause direct and indirect neurotoxicity…
According to the WHO rating scale, a