From my 2022 archives:
In the short time that I had to prepare for chemotherapy, I looked into the potential side effects that affect or overlap with my type 1 diabetes. Other than the more obvious things that throw my sugars for a loop, like the steroids and potential for nausea and vomiting, we T1d warriors also have to think about things that might make any existing or potential diabetes complications worse. While I was blessed to not have any significant neuropathy after living with T1d for so long, it is a risk of many chemotherapy drugs, including docetaxel (Taxotere, the “T” in TCHP), a part of my triple positive breast cancer regimen.
This is only a partial list of the cancer regimen medications that might cause or worsen neuropathy.
Be sure to review all of the parts of your regimen with your healthcare provider and ask if any may cause or worsen this complication for you. As patients, we need to advocate for ourselves!
So, me being me, I researched what I could do to reduce the risk of getting neuropathy from my chemo regimen. Unfortunately, not much, other than to keep my hands and feet really cold before, during and after the chemotherapy is infusing. Based on the information I found, we put the frozen packs on my hands and feet about 15 minutes before my docetaxel was scheduled to start, during the infusion and for 15 minutes after the infusion was finished. Most of the available cooling mittens/booties contain two sets of gel packs that you put in the freezer the night before your infusion; I recommend freezing and taking both with you, since your body temperature heats the packs quickly and you may need to change the gel packs out in the middle of your infusion. I kept the frozen packs in an insulated lunch box along with frozen inserts to keep them as cold as possible until they were needed.
I’ll be the first to admit that having freezing hands and feet was less than pleasant, particularly during the cycles where I was cold capping to try to prevent hair loss, which is a story for another day. Just one of several reasons to bring a good electric blanket to your infusions (yes, they allow this!).
~ Amelia
The theoretical reason for cooling your hands and feet is that less blood flow and so less chemo can get to your fingers and toes, thereby decreasing the risk of damaging your nerves in those areas. Despite the discomfort, I am so glad that I chose to do this, because despite it, I still developed neuropathy. Not painful, thank goodness, but the tips of my fingers started getting numb and tingly by about the 4th cycle of TCHP. It wasn’t bad enough to affect my ability to sense with my fingers, and was more of just a weird feeling. It slowly got better, and my fingertips felt normal about 6 months after I finished my docetaxel.
There is also some data to suggest that cooling your hands and feet may also lessen the effects of chemo on your nails, another fun side effect of these medications. My experience with this paralleled my neuropathy experience; the nails on my feet were fine, but the nails on my hands were pretty messed up for a while. Not bad enough to fall off, at least!
I have so many things to be grateful for:
- My medical knowledge helped me to quickly find reputable resources about the most common side effects of my cancer regimen
- I had the financial resources to buy the items to help me protect myself from neuropathy
- I was neuropathy-free before chemo and despite the blip, stay so today
- I had the opportunity to ‘pay it forward’ by passing on my mittens and booties to an old friend who ended up on a similar journey about a year after I finished
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