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09 6th, 2008| 
For those of us that have been through chemotherapy sickness (that chemo illness that feels like it is trying to rip you apart!), avoiding it, or at least lessening it, is something that we would do just about anything for. But is there really any way to avoid chemo sickness? Is it possible to stop the nausea created by the chemotherapy cancer treatment?
Your doctor should automatically give you anti-sickness injections and tablets with chemotherapy, if you are likely to need them. They work well for most people, but not everyone. Even the folks that they help, they don’t usually alleviate all of the cancer nausea. Is there anything else that can help?
If sickness is a side effect of your treatment, it usually starts from a few minutes to several hours after you have the drugs. Exactly when it happens depends on the drugs you are having. It may last for a few hours. Sometimes you may feel sick the next day too. Rarely, the sickness may last for several days.
One of the most promising alternative treatments for chemotherapy illness and vomiting is acupuncture. Self-applied acupressure for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting has been found to compare favourably with placebo. A multicentre, longitudinal, randomised clinical trial enrolled 160 women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. Subjects were randomised to one of three groups: acupressure at Neiguan P-6 point (active), acupressure to Houxi SI-3 point (placebo), or usual care only.
There are other measures that can be taken to lessen the effects of chemo sickness, and we will discuss them in due time. Have you tried anything that helped you?