eli5: Why cant they anesthetize chemo patients so they don’t feel the pain from chemotherapy?
In: Biology
The pain doesn’t come from the drugs being injected, it’s the after effects, that are the bad part.
Usually you don’t start feeling really bad till the next day or two days later (from personal experiences, not a doctor).
The other problem is that anesthesia, while it’s common and well known, isn’t a perfect science and it still always carries a risk, any medication does, and why risk the possibility that the chemo drugs and anesthetic and the patient might have some bad reaction, when you can instead just not give them extra drugs.
Small edit: the personal experience is from watching/helping my mother go through her treatment, and for those wondering I’m happy to say that now she’s doing great!
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