Reaching the Finish Line
- Chemotherapy can damage the body’s healthy cells as well as the targeted cancer cells. Fatigue can occur as your body tries to repair the damage to healthy cells and tissue.
- Fatigue is subjective and hard to measure
- Think of your chemo treatment like a marathon: you’ll continue to feel tired until you finish the race
- Light activity and restful sleep can help alleviate fatigue. But slow down if you need to
You’re going through chemo for ovarian cancer, please hang in there, we know it’s hard. “Fatigue is always a little bit challenging to talk about with patients, and part of that is because it’s so subjective,” says Dr. Manojkumar Bupathi, medical oncologist at Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers. We don’t have an objective way of measuring how fatigued someone is—”we don’t have a scale or anything like that.”
Chemotherapy can damage the body’s healthy cells as well as the targeted cancer cells, and fatigue can occur as your body tries to repair the damage to healthy cells and tissue. Unfortunately the tiredness tends to accumulate and can progressively harder to recover from during treatment.
Often, when patients ask me what does fatigue feel like, “I use the analogy of running a marathon,” Dr. Bupathi says. “And the reason for that is, people understand what it takes to run a marathon.” And they know what their ability to run a marathon is, and how it would personally feel to them.
On Your Marks…
“Usually, when you start chemotherapy, you’re kind of at that starting line of a marathon, you’re at your baseline, you’re good to go,” Dr. Bupathi explains. “But as you continue running, you’re going to feel more tired—until you get to the end of the race.”
When you reach, say, the first third of the marathon, “maybe you’ll be at 80 percent. And that’s probably what’s going to happen with your chemotherapy. But you take a break, maybe walk for a little while, and then restart. And you keep going. That’s really what happens with your chemotherapy. Either [we] dose adjust, or you take a week longer of a break, and then you keep going. And then you’re at 80 percent for another third of your marathon.
“When you take that time and slow down you should start bouncing back and you should start feeling like your normal self.”
Converting Marathon Mileage into Chemotherapy Days
As far as converting those miles into days, many doctors say that it’s typically around the 3rd day after chemo that patients start to feel washed out, a little fatigued, a little slow. This tends to kick in around the 3rd or 4th treatment, one oncologist told SurvivorNet. Around the 5th and 6th treatments, the fatigue really can accumulate. People often say, ‘Whatever took me an hour to do now takes me 90 minutes. What took 10 minutes now takes 15 minutes’ — but not that they can’t do anything. During that time, he says, most people are largely functional.
Largely is important to keep in mind, because you will feel more more tired: Nobody’s typical daily activity includes going to a hospital for an infusion.
Restful Sleep and Light Exercise Can Help
While you shouldn’t push yourself if you don’t feel well, most doctors tell SurvivorNet that they advise patients to try to get the recommended 7-9 hours of restful sleep, and stay as active as possible, for instance going for a walk every day. Exercise doesn’t just help manage fatigue, it will keep you in better shape—think about those marathoners—and help you get back to normal when you’re done with treatment.
Once chemo is over, doctors say, most patients will regain their old energy.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
Dr. Manojkumar Bupathi is a medical oncologist with Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers. Read More
Reaching the Finish Line
- Chemotherapy can damage the body’s healthy cells as well as the targeted cancer cells. Fatigue can occur as your body tries to repair the damage to healthy cells and tissue.
- Fatigue is subjective and hard to measure
- Think of your chemo treatment like a marathon: you’ll continue to feel tired until you finish the race
- Light activity and restful sleep can help alleviate fatigue. But slow down if you need to
You’re going through chemo for ovarian cancer, please hang in there, we know it’s hard. “Fatigue is always a little bit challenging to talk about with patients, and part of that is because it’s so subjective,” says
Dr. Manojkumar Bupathi, medical oncologist at Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers. We don’t have an objective way of measuring how fatigued someone is—”we don’t have a scale or anything like that.”
Chemotherapy can damage the body’s healthy cells as well as the targeted cancer cells, and fatigue can occur as your body tries to repair the damage to healthy cells and tissue. Unfortunately the tiredness tends to accumulate and can progressively harder to recover from during treatment.
Read More Often, when patients ask me what does fatigue feel like, “I use the analogy of running a marathon,” Dr. Bupathi says. “And the reason for that is, people understand what it takes to run a marathon.” And they know what their ability to run a marathon is, and how it would personally feel to them.
On Your Marks…
“Usually, when you start chemotherapy, you’re kind of at that starting line of a marathon, you’re at your baseline, you’re good to go,” Dr. Bupathi explains. “But as you continue running, you’re going to feel more tired—until you get to the end of the race.”
When you reach, say, the first third of the marathon, “maybe you’ll be at 80 percent. And that’s probably what’s going to happen with your chemotherapy. But you take a break, maybe walk for a little while, and then restart. And you keep going. That’s really what happens with your chemotherapy. Either [we] dose adjust, or you take a week longer of a break, and then you keep going. And then you’re at 80 percent for another third of your marathon.
“When you take that time and slow down you should start bouncing back and you should start feeling like your normal self.”
Converting Marathon Mileage into Chemotherapy Days
As far as converting those miles into days, many doctors say that it’s typically around the 3rd day after chemo that patients start to feel washed out, a little fatigued, a little slow. This tends to kick in around the 3rd or 4th treatment, one oncologist told SurvivorNet. Around the 5th and 6th treatments, the fatigue really can accumulate. People often say, ‘Whatever took me an hour to do now takes me 90 minutes. What took 10 minutes now takes 15 minutes’ — but not that they can’t do anything. During that time, he says, most people are largely functional.
Largely is important to keep in mind, because you will feel more more tired: Nobody’s typical daily activity includes going to a hospital for an infusion.
Restful Sleep and Light Exercise Can Help
While you shouldn’t push yourself if you don’t feel well, most doctors tell SurvivorNet that they advise patients to try to get the recommended 7-9 hours of restful sleep, and stay as active as possible, for instance going for a walk every day. Exercise doesn’t just help manage fatigue, it will keep you in better shape—think about those marathoners—and help you get back to normal when you’re done with treatment.
Once chemo is over, doctors say, most patients will regain their old energy.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
Dr. Manojkumar Bupathi is a medical oncologist with Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers. Read More
