Side Effects of Chemotherapy

Some of the known side effects of chemotherapy include nausea, vomiting, fatigue, diarrhea, anemia, infection, mouth sores, changes in taste and smell. If you or your love ones are undergoing chemotherapy to cure a certain disease, you might want to learn about these side effects.

Drugs used in chemotherapy not only kill bad cells in your body, but it also kill good cells as well. Your body needs good cells to function properly. When some of the cells in your body die; your immune system is at a lowest level. This causes fatigue, anemia and other symptoms as described above. Some people can tolerate chemotherapy better than the others, it all depends on the physical fitness one has prior to the treatment. Age is also another factor that will determine the way your body can tolerate chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy patients might also experience loss of appetite depending on types of drugs used. Some drugs may help patients to gain good appetite, while some drugs will just make them lose it altogether. When this happens, it can be very difficult for the patients to fight the strength of the drugs since nutrition is so vital to our body. Patients might also experience a change in color of their skin as well.

Drugs in chemotherapy can cause peripheral neuropathy, which is damage to peripheral nerves. Nerve dysfunctions can cause tremors, numbness and tingling in hands and feet, and gait abnormality, which causes trouble in climbing stairs. Problems with gait abnormality will go away in a year’s time. Some chemotherapy can cause permanent menopause, while some can cause temporary infertility in women and men as well.