Treatment Effects
Side effects of cancer treatment
Understand side effects and long-term effects of cancer treatment so that you can feel more in control of your health as a cancer survivor.
It is not clear why the side effects are delayed after usual cancer treatment. Some doctors believe that side effects simply were not focused during and immediately after your treatment, though the damage may have been there all along. It could be that your body was compensating for the damage caused by cancer treatment and is no longer able to do that, revealing the possible side effects.
Some side effects start during your cancer treatment and linger for months or years after your treatment. These are called long-term side effects of cancer treatment. For instance, nerve damage is common during some types
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of chemotherapy and may begin during treatment but linger for months or even years after cancer treatment is completed.
Some cancer survivors wonder why they were not made aware about the possibility of side effects before they began treatment. Sometimes cancer survivors were told, but with so much to remember and go through when you are first diagnosed and beginning treatment, it's easy to forget or not absorb all the information you're given. |
Sometimes your doctor doesn't discuss side effects because it's impossible to discuss every single side effect, early or late, that some treatments have. It's also possible that the side effects of your treatment were not known at the time you began that treatment.
Keep in mind that not everyone who has cancer treatment gets each of the long-term or late side effects, and some people might not experience any aftereffects of treatment. Different chemotherapy drugs cause different late effects. So if you didn't take the chemotherapy drugs that can cause hearing loss, then you aren't believed to be at risk of that particular late effect. Radiation and surgery will only affect the area of the body they're used to treat. So if you had radiation to a part of your body other than your head or neck, then you won't be at risk of cavities and tooth loss in the future.
Effects
Constipation - Constipation is the slow movement of feces (stool or body wastes) through the large intestine resulting in infrequent bowel movements and the passage of dry, hard stools. The more time it takes for the stool to move through the large intestine, the more fluid is absorbed and the stool will become harder and drier.
Delirium – It is a malfunction of the brain. There is no known cause for delirium. Person who is experiencing delirium may be full of consciousness and often have problems with attention, thinking, perception, emotion, memory, muscle control, sleeping, and waking.
Fatigue - It involves extreme tiredness and exhaustion. Extreme usually occurs with person who is receiving treatment for their cancer.
Nausea and vomiting - Can be stimulated by various triggers, such as smell, taste, anxiety, pain, motion, changes in the body caused by inflammation, poor blood flow, or irritation.
Mouth sores is the common side effect of chemotherapy treatment.
Side effects can be classified as follows for Chemotherapy:
- Fatigue
- Menopause
- Chemo brain
- Heart failure
- Liver Problem
Side effects can be classified as follows for Surgery:
Side effects can be classified as follows for Radiation therapy:
