Steroids and Chemotherapy- the stuff your doctor does not tell you...

The past few weeks have been up and down for me, I took at 3 week break from chemotherapy to decide if I wanted to try a new treatment. By the end of the first week off, I was miserably sick.  The pain up under my rib cage ( where I have a small tumor) was excruciating and I had abdominal pain that took my breath away. I suspected it was from the lack of steroids in my system.

The doctor's fail to tell you that the way they force your body to accept chemotherapy which is essentially a poison, is to also add large doses of steroids to  your treatment. So while you are sitting there getting chemo. you are also getting a large dose of steroids.

Usually this dose of steroids is the reason for people feeling so good the first few days after chemotherapy. The steroids give you boundless energy. They also help with any pain a patient may be experiencing. The doctor will not tell you that when the steroids start to wear off you are going to start getting sick, sick , sick.

The problem for me seems to be that I have been getting steroids for a year, so when you take them away I become sick. My doctor and nurses sort of shined me on when  I mentioned the lack of steroids as possibly causing my pain? Yet when I restarted my chemo this Wednesday and got dosed up with steroids, my gut pain slowed up considerably.  Today is Friday and the only abdominal pain I have is up under my rib cage.

I wonder if there is any research out there on this phenomenon? If you have heard of any literature on how to get through withdrawing from steroids when you finish chemo I would appreciate you sending it to me.

***Once again I need to mention I am not a Doctor - this is just my interpretation of what is happening to me based on my physical experience.