Question: muscle cramps and chemo
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Julie, all is good! Stay on this upswing as these minor things can be fixed and honestly wish I had the stamina you have, keep all the good news coming! YIPPEE!
Update: My GP ordered a series of blood labs, including a test for Magnesium and Vit D levels to see if that might give a clue as to the origin of the muscle cramping. Both of those came back below the bottom end of normal….very deficient, so I am going to set up a consult with her to see what we can do for supplementation to get things back to normal and me feeling better…and ending the threat of muscle cramps.
And…all of my liver and lipid panel tests were normal . Whoohoo! In the summer of 2013, when the intrahepatic CC was brewing in my left liver lobe, a cholesteral test showed elevation out of normal for almost everything. Of course, the first thing they want to do is give you a statin, which I refused to do as I’ve taken statins before and they’ve given me numerous very yucky side effects. Since being diagnosed, I found out that ICC can show up as an unexpected elevation in the lipid profile blood tests….though most doctors, even some very good ones, wouldn’t attribute that to ICC.
My blood sugar is still out of whack…..which I expected to see….but that is something that got very screwed up during chemo (and the steroids). I finally feel enough in control to hopefully get a handle on it.
Julie T
This Just might be helpful:
my mum has never been on chemo, but she has suffered with extremely painful cramps, mostly in her legs.
Ît turns out that she is very deficient in magnesium. Our doctor has prescribed her magnespasmyl forte and that is absolutely working. Maybe you could try this?Gavin, Catherine and Marion,
Thanks for the help on the muscle cramp question. I realize this could be unrelated to the chemo, but it could be a depletion of some mineral that the chemo caused as well. Or…who knows. I read that in many cases, the cause isn’t known. Wonderful!! Meanwhile, if this happens to anyone….and they have someone who is with them who can get something for them……a hot compress on the thighs helps to soften the spasming muscle….just not right away. I actually used a compress again last night as a preventative.
As for the tonic water…..I did read about that. It contains quinine which can cause issues with the liver. That’s kind of scary considering that CC is liver related. Quinine has been given to people who have “restless leg syndrome” (my MIL used it for that….and ended up in the hospital a number of years ago). The FDA has pretty much banned the use of quinine pills for that reason. The tonic water available now, has very little quinine in it, but apparently enough to stop the muscle spasm if it has worked recently for Catherine’s dad. I may check into it….have one by the bedside just in case. I would think drinking one tonic water would not have the same effect as taking pills on a continual basis.
Julie….muscle cramps are listed as Cisplatin rare side effect:
http://www.drugs.com/sfx/cisplatin-side-effects.html
Hugs,
MarionHi Julie,
Mom didn’t have the muscle cramps with chemo, but it is something that Dad has dealt with occasionally over the years (not cancer related). Not often, but when they set in he has EXCRUCIATING pain. What mitigates the pain is drinking tonic ( I think there is a pill form as well). We’ve learned that especially when traveling, he packs a couple of small bottles in the suit case. He says within minutes the pain subsides.
Good luck,
CatherineHi Julie,
I did a quick search on google for you and came up with these. Not too much info but they do mention Gem/Cis and muscle cramps.
https://patienteducation.osumc.edu/Documents/GemcitabineCisplatin.pdf
To be honest Julie I couldn’t really find too much about cramping and Gem/Cis. Maybe the cramping could be related to something other than the chemo? How are you feeling today?
Could be down to lack of fluids as you say. Here are some other links from the UK’s 2 main cancer organisations –
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancers-in-general/treatment/cancer-drugs/gemcarbo
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancers-in-general/treatment/cancer-drugs/gemcitabine
Did you speak with your doc or Onc about this today?
Hugs,Gavin
Anybody out there who has had Gem/Cis and experienced muscle cramps after finishing adjuvant chemo?
I finished 6 rounds of Gem/Cis on August 27th, 2014 and by mid October, I started having painful cramps in my right hand that would draw all the fingers to the center. I had to force the fingers open and held them there until the cramp stopped….only to have it happen again minutes later. That went away for a while and then resurfaced multiple times over the past months. I started then having some light cramping in my lower leg muscles, which weren’t too bad. BUT….the biggie hit one night with a massive muscle cramp first in my right inner thigh and then in hardly a minute, the left inner thigh also cramped. I’ve NEVER had a muscle cramp like that in my life…..the pain makes a calf charley horse feel like child’s play. My husband even called our Dr. (at 2 a.m.) to see what we could do because I was still in horrible pain and screaming 15 minutes after it started. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do, except ride it out. That was a couple months ago. Last night, the inner thigh cramp hit again…and almost started in my other thigh, but I must have moved just right and it stopped. I spent the next three hours with a hot pack on my thighs to try to quiet the muscles down and relax them.
In the process of doing thre hot packs, I did some research and found that there are some instances of chemos causing cramping. Cisplatin does cause periferal neuropathy, which I got in my toes on both feet, but I’m wondering if the Cisplatin or Gemcitiben might deplete some particular mineral that would cause these muscle cramps to start up.
Last night, the cramps in my hand were just on the edge of starting up again through all of this. And, I felt a huge knot suddenly hit in my lower left abdomin within seconds after the first thigh cramp started. I pushed in really hard on it and it stoppped, thank goodness, but the whole episode was very scarey.
I used the search function and found that Iranican was noted to have reports of muscle cramps post trials. But, I don’t see anything about Gem/Cis .
Anyone have anything on this?
Julie T.
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