Everything has a side effect! Side effect(s) also come with how much quantity you take for a short period of time. It's only common sense that the higher quantity is taken within a short period of time, the side effect will usually be more. Drug safety is of prime importance, and authority, such as FDA in US, they treat drug safety issue much higher than the effectiveness of the drug. In the history of drug approvals, it's very easy to find that a lot of disapproved drugs were due to some unexplained side effects and ceased to proceed with their clinical trials (or approval process). Of course, if the side effects can be explained and are known to researchers, then the drug will be allowed to proceed with their approval process and usually to be approved together with it's known side effects. Also for same reason, you may read in the Drug Information Sheet (also known as Packing Insert) a long list of side effects, even those side effects which rarely take place.
If it's the first time you read about the long list of side effects, some time it can be scary. Yesterday, I was talking to a cancer fellow, she was very concerned regarding the side effects that she is going to get from her chemotherapy. She is concerned about the vomiting, the constipation and the dizziness. She said she can survive the surgery, but she doesn't think she can survive the side effects of the chemotherapy in the next 6 months. She developed some anxiety and requested the doctor to prescribe her the anti-anxiety drug, which is going to give her another side effect! What can I tell her to ease her mind?
My approach is rather straight forward: In the education session, the nurse will provide us with various information before the chemotherapy treatment. It is very detailed and including all the drugs and their side effects. They also provide you with suggestions on how to deal with the side effects. Using vomiting as an example, it's very common that chemotherapy drug will cause vomiting, then Ondansetron (Zofran) will be prescribed as an anti-vomiting agent for you to take before and after the chemotherapy. However, the side effects of this anti-vomiting drug is constipation, which is actually very annoying especially for elderly people who is already suffering from daily constipation. In this case, I will try to find the balance. First, I will be very sensitive on how I am doing on my vomiting, if it's not too bad, I stop taking Ondansetron. If the vomiting continue and I cannot stand, or it's better off to have the Ondansetron, then I will try to work on the constipation through careful trial of various laxatives, i.e. using Sennosides, Lactulose and Docusate, plus diet intake and anus muscle exercise and find out the best and workable approach for me. (*Please take special note that there are various kinds of laxatives and they all work differently and exist for a different purpose.) Most important of all, you must try to keep an "easy mind" as if you are upset by your own situation, your mood tend to go down and this will not help you one way or another. Right the reverse, if you have a positive mindset, you see the issue positively and try to work for the solution, at the end, ONLY YOU are going to be benefit from it, isn't it? Talking to someone with experience also help, i.e. join the support group and see what other cancer fellows can offer you.
One common side effects of Tarceva is skin rash and I am very well informed and prepared for it. In fact, when the skin rash didn't come in the first few days, I was concerned that my body did not respond well to the drug. Hahahah! (*See ... side effects can also be an indicator of the response rate of your body!) Now that I have the skin rash, it's important that I have to take care of it.
It's okay to have side effects. They are expected and it also showed that your body is reacting normally!
This second picture was taken yesterday (15th April,, 2010), and you may observe that the skin is peeling off.
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