My husband has heartburn from chemotherapy. I don't know how to help relieve his pain.?

Question

He is doubling over in pain. He is taking Protonix, Pepcid and Maalox. He called the doctor yesterday. He told him to try the Pepcid. I'm desperate for help. If anyone has any idea how I can help him please let me know. I'm at my whits end. Thanks.

Answer 1

Panda is correct.  Doubled over with pain could be many things.

An ER visit is in order here.

So often people on chemotherapy believe that everything that happens is a side effect.  Even their primary care doctors tend to attribute every problem to the treatment.

Over the years I have seen people on chemotherapy have appendicitis, kidney stones, gall stones, diverticulitis, and other problems causing abdominal pains that are not related to the chemotherapy treatments.

Medicine is not simple.  There are often many things going on at once.

Since I am 4 hours late in seeing this question, I hope you have called his oncologist or taken him to the ER by now.

Answer 2

Hi - I must agree with Panda. I take chemo every single day, he should not be doubled over like this. I get heartburn, but not to that point. You are a doll to be so caring for him. I wish you both the best. Take care.  

Answer 3

Call the doctor back and tell him your husband in in PAIN. He will probably be sent to the ER for an evaluation. You have no idea if the heartburn is being caused by the chemotherapy or something else . . so he needs to be evaluated if none of these medicines have helped him. It is completely unnecessary for him to be so uncomfortable that he is in pain .. . call the doctor now. Someone is on call and will help you sort this out. It's their job.

Answer 4

sorry to hear your husband has been ill and wishing him a good recovery!for heartburn,try an old method!1/2 teaspoon of bicarb of soda(baking soda) in a small glass of milk,it tastes rank but it works! good luck!

Answer 5

Agree with Panda and the Doc -- hopefully you sought emergency treatment or at least called your husband's oncologist.  Hopefully he's already feeling better.

If it turns out to indeed be acid reflux, there's a few things you can try.  I had really bad acid reflux for years prior to starting chemo.  Chemo seemed to make it worse, but it was actually the steroid my oncologist gave me to help with nausea that really intensified the burning.  (The steroid was Dexamethsone.)  If your husband is getting an "optional" steroid for something like that, that might be one thing to try.

Of the anti-reflux drugs, Nexium is excellent, but some people might do better on Prevacid (example Nexium doesn't help my little brother, but Prevacid does).  What I did was take Nexium along with Zantac for breakthrough heartburn.  That was enough through about 6 cycles of chemo; the last two cycles even that wasn't helping, so my oncologist tried Reglan.  Reglan speeds up food through your stomach, but it has some side effects, so you'd have to balance the risk versus the good.  I took it for a short time and had no problems.

One big key for me that was tough at times -- I had to eat regularly.  If my stomach got empty, the reflux would get out of control and become very painful.

Good luck and I hope he is already feeling better!!

Answer 6

my oncologist told me to get some over-the-counter Citirizine (Zantac). Taking it twice a day seemed to work just as well as Nexxium did for me.

However, it turns out, my heartburn, which i thought was solely from the chemo, was also being triggered by my insane diet. I try to eat as healthy as I can, however, it is hard to ensre proper nutrition whn you can't keep it all down and have restrictions...

so my heartburn was actually more of a result of food not being absorbed and a lack of ENZYMES.

:-/

Once, during one of my hospital stays, they gave me Reglan as a substitute for my Zantac, which also worked wonders.

but for a temporary fix... try anything that is a base... milk products... or, what works for me (and also helps w/ nausea, too), are charcoal pretzels... They're the slightly-burnt-type pretzels... they absorb the acid and make it less uncomfortable. Helps me immensely :)

hang in there

Answer 7

Ask his doc about Nexium - its much better than Pepcid.