eli5: Why cant they anesthetize chemo patients so they don’t feel the pain from chemotherapy?
In: Biology
Anaesthetising someone for the most part is sedating them and giving them a muscle relaxant, they’ll still feel pain, which is why the anaesthetist has to keep their pain controlled with analgesics, control heart rate and blood pressure etc. It’s not a magic fix all
As a former chemo patient, it wasn’t that kind of pain. The chemo being administered wasn’t the painful part. But afterwards I was so achy and uncomfortable and fatigued I couldn’t move. I remember just lying flat on my bed, too exhausted to move, letting tears just roll down my face because I was too uncomfortable to sleep. Low doses of dexamethasone helped the most.
I’ve been on chemo for an autoimmune disease, but the principles are the same as with cancer.
You would have had to knock me out for about 12-18 months straight. The horrible feelings come from your body almost dying as a result of the chemo, not the chemo itself. The drugs are basically designed to kill you slowly, and in the best case scenario, the fast splitting nature of cancer cells means it dies faster than the rest of you.
It’s not a battle, it’s a race to the finish line of death. All you can do is hope you lose the race.
You’re headache last 24 hours but the Tylenol only last 5 minutes. And every time you use that Tylenol, you roll the chance of not waking up. Cancer sucks
It’s all about risk vs benefit.
Chemo is often given in cycles over the course of months or weeks. For example you’ll have a dose every 2 weeks for 2 months. If you were to anaesthetise someone for 2 months you would be putting them at so much risk. For example:
You would need a ventilator because you would be unconscious and unable to breath for yourself. This would put you at risk of chest infections too. Being 6 ventilated for such a long time also increases the likelihood of weakening your cough reflex – which causes problems for when they want to wean you off the ventilator. Imagine not being able to cough to clear your own secretions… You will get more chest infections.
Anasthesia is also known to lower your blood pressure. So you would need continuous IV medications to keep the blood pressure up. In order to have these medications you would need to have a large IV line inserted into a big vein in your neck, or your groin…. which would also add an extra risk of infection.
You’re also unable to pee for yourself when unconscious, so would need a catheter – another source of possible infection.
With regards to nutrition – you could be fed through a tube in your nose that goes into your stomach… However, when you’re on those special blood pressure IV medication it tends to slow your gut down. This means that your body stops absorbing the feed that you’re getting through the tube in your nose, and so you loose your much needed calories. To get over this, you could have nutrition into the vein (through that large IV line in your neck). But of course, this carries a greater risk of infection again. Also, if you’re getting IV nutrition then you’re not using your gut so this will cause problems in the long run. Also, during this time you will not be eating naturally and so you will weaken your swallow muscles, which makes it hard for you to return to normal way of eating afterwards.
You’re also at risk of getting bed sores, you guessed it – another risk of infection and also painful.
You’re also not moving, so your muscles will waste away too. So imagine waking up after having all of the above over the course of your chemotherapy.. You will be so weak, you may have battled many infections and now you have to undergo intensive physio rehab to learn how to walk again, and you have to learn how to eat again…
On top of that, chemotherapy is known to lower the immune system. So putting a person at risk of all these above infections that I mentioned when you know they’re not going to be very strong anyways is just not worth the risk.
And not to mention the cost of all of this too
The risk by far outweighs the benefit!
Repeated anaesthesia is very taxing on the body and can be quite dangerous. Anaesthesia is usually limited to necessity
I’ve had chemo and stem cell treatment because of Testicular Cancer. It took me around a year to be in remission. And i still am.
I also told my doctor that i want to be sedated at least. In order to be able to handle the hardest round of chemo i took (Just before the stem cell treatment).
He told me that there may be some complications from the sedation medicine they would give me and they may not be able to understand if it is from chemo or stem cell transplant or some other medication i took. So it complicates everything.
Also most sedating medication and anesthesia are drugs which might suppress your respiration. So there is that too.
Hard times tbh, but i am happy that i had cancer. It tought me that if i keep living the life my family, friends and my then fiancée want me to (she broke up with me amidst the treatment, 4th month or sth) , i will die a sad man.
I have left with no fucks to give anymore.
As far as i know , chemo is not exactly about pain. Its about malfunction of various systems in your body, depending on person. Starting with hair loss, loss of apetite, infections , feeling of constantly being sick , constant fatigue etc. There is no anesthetic for that. Its inrcredibly destrutcive to your body and makes your life miserable.
I am sure this was covered,but chemo doesn’t actually hurt. I got a numbing cream for the port access (they also sprayed it with a numbing spray right before access) but I wouldn’t say it was ever painful. Side effects suck though.
My wife had breast cancer and you do not feel pain from Chemotherapy itself. Any pain being felt is a direct result of the cytotoxics being administered as well any supplement treatment such as injections for white and red blood cells, etc. Over time your white and red blood cells become less and less and this can have incredible effects on your body. Many platinum based chemotherapies also cause insane allergic reactions and so often they test a little bit to see if its fine and also give you a antihistamine dose. It really depends on the drugs but most people dont feel pain from the administation itself. In countries with good healthcare like Germany, the system automatically inserts a port, so it goes directly over the heart, which makes things even easier.
Additionally, the pain can also just be related to cancer progression itself.
Anaesthesia is also not perfect. My wife was put under anaesthesia when her cancer recurred, because the pain she had from her cancer was restricting her ability to receive radiation treatment properly. She never woke up from the anaesthesia. It was just all too much for her system. She was in a coma for 2 days before we eventually said good bye to her.
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