The Chemo Headache

May 29th, 2011

Anyone that has had chemo probably has had the chemo headache. For me, my chemo medication injections include Dexamethasone Sodium Phosphate, Cytoxin, Adriamycin, Lorazepam, Zofran, and Heparin. Four out of those six have headache as the side effects. Then there are the after chemo medications they give you for nausea: Emend and Zofran (again) that also cause headaches. You can imagine how massive and relentless the resulting headache is.

Luckily I have Dr. Gunn, who called in Florinal for me. It is a god send. It doesn’t completely knock out the headache but takes it down to a manageable level where you can at least function.

I searched the forums for different solutions to this headache and it’s full of suggestions like drinking plenty of water (i’m floating away at this point, peeing every half hour), and acupuncture, and the like. But on a saturday night I’m not sure there are many acupuncturists doing office visits. I’ll stick with my florinal for a while. The downside is it is really focused on headache alleviation and you can’t take it with Lortab for instance, which helps with surgical pain. However, surgical pain is much easier to deal with then a headache for some reason for me so the trade off is fair.

Hope this post helps others with the chemo headache problem.