Step 5 Manage Treatment and Its Effects

Understand & Minimize Treatment Side Effects

While treatments for cancer can bring a great deal of hope and relief for your disease, they also bring side effects that range from uncomfortable to very painful. If you want to prove you're Superman or Wonder Woman, go ahead and grit your teeth and take all the pain, nausea and other physical and mental suffering that cancer can throw at you. But real people feel real discomfort, sometimes severediscomfort, and there is no need to endure that. There are now some very efffective drugs and complementary medicine therapies that can minimize or, in many cases, eliminate some of the debilitating side effects.

Pain management
The newest developments in cancer treatment include the understanding that pain(the physical and mental pain, the nausea and fatigue that comes from the cancer itself as well as from conventional treatment) should be treated from the outset. If you catch pain when it starts, early in its cycle, you have a better chance of controlling it down the road. That is why it's a good idea to start talking to your doctor, your advocate and pain specialists now, before you start treatment. As you familiarize yourself with different treatment options, ask what pain you might expect from each option and other side effects, and what ways there are to deal with each one effectively. Doní't wait till you're in pain. Ask your doctor now.

Pain
Chemotherapy, radiation, and especially surgery can result in a little or a great deal of pain. Unfortunately, many people don't ask their doctor for any relief for pain.
The desire to reduce pain is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of intelligence. Relieving pain or other debilitating side effects will give you the emotional and physical strength to fight the disease; otherwise you will be forced to waste precious energy fighting the pain.