eli5: Why cant they anesthetize chemo patients so they don’t feel the pain from chemotherapy?
In: Biology
I read your title and got the terms anesthetize and euthanize confused for a second. As you might imagine, I was initially horrified.
I’m not an anesthesiologist, but I suspect it’s because it would add significant risk and expense to an already criminally expensive process for only a temporary delay in the suffering the procedure causes.
Anaesthetics are actually a very dangerous type of medication. Not so much on a healthy person, but on people who are already suffering from illnesses like cancer, or treatments like chemo, it becomes much riskier.
It can be done if it’s necessary. The risk isn’t so high that it would never be done. But it’s just not worth the risk when you could instead administer pain medication.
And that’s forgetting the fact that chemo side effects are protracted. You couldn’t reasonably keep someone under to avoid all of the side effects of chemo. You’d have to keep them under for days at a time.
It varies hugely depending on individual, which chemotherapy drugs, what dosages, what frequency.
But, basically, Because after each dose in general you’ve got a few days of the worst of the effects before they subside. And they can be dosed weekly or every few days for months.
Putting someone into effectively an induced coma for 6-12 months is impractical at best, bad for their health at worst.
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!
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
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’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.
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.
Latest Answers