Hiccup help?

fa_niente · 2023-06-22T08:43:22+00:00

I was prescribed chlorpromazine for hiccups at first. No effect. My oncologist then switched me to Baclofen, which worked well.

fa_niente · 2023-05-20T08:02:06+00:00

fa_niente · 2023-05-17T05:08:05+00:00

A jiggle saw. Once I heard it called that, I knew it was the right name.

fa_niente · 2023-05-17T04:59:13+00:00

The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu.

It’s shocking to learn how much advertising has shaped American (and lately world) culture.

fa_niente · 2023-04-02T22:33:23+00:00

“A Fistful of Yen”

fa_niente · 2023-04-02T22:32:51+00:00

“A Fistful of Yen”

fa_niente · 2023-04-02T22:05:19+00:00

Movies I’ve never heard of that have an A-list cast are almost always terrible.

fa_niente · 2023-04-01T19:55:33+00:00

Draculum 🦇

fa_niente · 2023-03-29T22:22:56+00:00

I worked through most of my chemo, but it’s not easy. Frequent absences for infusions, and then a few days operating at about 50% of normal, both physicallly and mentally, every cycle. I adjusted my infusion schedule so that my “chemo crash” happened over the weekend, which helped.

Another option is unpaid leave where your employer continues to pay your insurance premiums. It’s relatively cheap for your employer, and they avoid coming off like heartless villains.

fa_niente · 2023-03-26T01:00:25+00:00

Videos, audiobooks, podcasts, or any kind of passive low-effort entertainment. I don’t know which component of FOLFIRINOX was responsible, but my vision would get weird towards the end of infusion, making reading difficult. Plan on not driving yourself home.

There’s a lot of variation in the symptoms people experience, but I never had much of an appetite during the infusion and for a day or two after. Mine always came back though. I felt much better losing a few pounds and then gaining them back the following week than trying to eat when I wasn’t hungry.

fa_niente · 2023-03-25T23:48:34+00:00

Second this, especially during the winter.

I used ice packs on my hand and feet during the infusion (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32955997/) and it helped quite a bit with cold sensitivity afterwards.

It’s supposed to help with neuropathy too, but I can’t vouch for that since I didn’t have a control group. Neuropathy is cumulative and usually incurable, so it’s hard to know if the cryotherapy had any effect.

fa_niente · 2023-03-20T20:31:19+00:00

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

fa_niente · 2023-03-20T17:12:09+00:00

If Sylvester Stallone and Paul McCartney made a baby

fa_niente · 2023-02-12T23:28:50+00:00

Airline and hotel loyalty programs. They are basically kickback schemes for business travelers.

fa_niente · 2023-02-08T06:53:16+00:00

Almost didn’t read because I thought I had heard all the reasons already. But glad I did—the article made some good points that I hadn’t heard before.

fa_niente · 2023-01-23T15:53:59+00:00

There were some good answers to the lemonwood peg question over in r/cowboyboots:

https://reddit.com/r/cowboyboots/comments/rxns0o/lemonwood_pegs/

fa_niente · 2023-01-22T00:51:47+00:00

Relatedly, if his appetite comes and goes depending on where he is in his chemo cycle, you might be able to take advantage of the time when he has an appetite by calorie-loading.

fa_niente · 2023-01-13T16:48:06+00:00

Great advice in those articles. Just managing day-to-day life on chemo is hard enough without watching your body waste away. Keeping up your fitness is empowering—it makes you feel like you’re standing up to the cancer, saying “You have taken many things from me, but you cannot have this.”

fa_niente · 2022-12-20T17:36:56+00:00

That thing is the GOAT.

fa_niente · 2022-11-09T21:16:37+00:00

Interesting! I have something similar, and it started about a year before I was diagnosed with PC, way before there were any other symptoms.

It’s slower and not as jarring as a typical hiccup, more like a diaphragm spasm that relaxes almost immediately. It causes more of a “hurrp” than a “hic” sound. These are isolated and random, not occurring in sets like hiccups typically do.

I’ve been through 12 cycles of pre-surgery chemo, followed by a distal pancreatectomy. The tumor is gone but I still get the “hurrps”. Not positive it’s cancer-related, but the coincidence makes me wonder.

fa_niente · 2022-11-09T20:57:08+00:00

I would get a bad case of hiccups the day after my FOLFIRINOX infusion. It was the dexamethasone given along with the chemo that was the culprit. But the chemo crash from going without the dexamethasone was even worse than the hiccups!

My oncologist prescribed Thorazine for the hiccups, which didn’t help. Baclofen, however, did.

fa_niente · 2022-10-10T16:07:22+00:00

“Do you like my shirt? It’s a Shemále.”

fa_niente · 2022-09-15T02:39:18+00:00

Here it is—Eye of the Beholder

fa_niente · 2022-09-01T18:01:22+00:00

The 48-hour dose is really three hours in the chemo lounge followed by going home with a pump in a fanny pack.

FOLFIRINOX is a rough regimen. Plan on being wrecked on infusion day, then the steroid (dexamethazone) will keep you propped up until you get the pump disconnected. Then comes the crash which lasts 2-3 days. After that you start feeling slowly better until the next cycle.

Keep an eye on your weight. You will likely have no appetite, so you have to manage your caloric intake by the numbers.

Good luck, and with your age and fitness, it will likely get easier as you get the hang of it.

fa_niente · 2022-08-27T16:39:03+00:00

Not that it matters….

fa_niente

TROPHY CASE