Does chemotherapy affect your brain?!
Question: ok im proud to say I'm a cancer survivor and i have been cancer free thank God for 2years now. and i dont take anymore medicine or chemo anymore! and i have long hair now!! yay!!! i visit my dr. every 3 months. here's the thing though before chemo i had such a good memory i remembered everything but now i cant remember anything!! like if i forget something i totally just forget about it for like ever! is it because of the chemo or my busy life now with college and school?
i had a cancerous tumor btw.
Answers: ok im proud to say I'm a cancer survivor and i have been cancer free thank God for 2years now. and i dont take anymore medicine or chemo anymore! and i have long hair now!! yay!!! i visit my dr. every 3 months. here's the thing though before chemo i had such a good memory i remembered everything but now i cant remember anything!! like if i forget something i totally just forget about it for like ever! is it because of the chemo or my busy life now with college and school?
i had a cancerous tumor btw.
Chemo brain is definatly real. I know there are those that say its not, but yeah, it is.. The first time around I had 6 chemo rounds over 9 months and the second 3 chemo rounds and massive radiation. I cant prove it because I have no brain scans from before the first treatment (atleast none recent anyways) to compare to the scans now. However, I constantly forget everything. I have post its everywhere, send myself vmails and emails set alarms and everything else I can try to do to remind of stuff. Its like I completly forget about small things like switching the clothes or an appointment, even when I have spent much time deliberatly thinking about it.
I used to be great at math in my head, to the point of solving long division and complicated algebra without paper. Now I have a hard time doing simple addition without a calculater even on paper much less in my head.
I have extensive vocabulary knowledge and though I have never been fluent in any other langs I used to know enough french and spanish to get basic meanings across. Now I constantly have trouble thinking of the right word in english, much less a foreign lang.
I used to have near perfect typing skills, now I constantly hit the wrong keys or stuff like that.
And I even have some hand/eye coordination issues now. Never was very graceful, but was never this clumsy before.
I just re enrolled in school. Ofcourse, I ended up having to drop the entire semester too because I jumped ahead of myself medically and ended up hospitalized and missed to many classes, but I definatly was finding it much difficult than I remember (the last time I was in school was 4 years ago, my last treatment was this past july, but the treatment was a stem cell (bone marrow) transplant which is incredibly traumatic on the body)
yes, chemo affects the entire body, including the brain. It will take time for you to rebuild your memory capabilities. Congratulations on surviving.
it is likely your busy life. how much chemo did you get? i had four months of chemo i forget things too, but i think its is because women have so much on their plates. CONGRATULATIONS!!! by the way!! chemo does suck thou!!!
Many of the drugs don't pass the blood brain barrier. The blood brain barrier is located between the blood and the extracellular space of the brain. This barrier is formed by the brain capillaries whose endothelial cells have tight intercellular junctions. Transcellular passage of drugs from the bloodstream to the brain occurs selectively. Following intravenous administration, most drugs fail to achieve adequate levels in the central nervous system for a sufficiently long period of time. Perhaps you need to just get back into the "swing" of things. I noticed that when I was in college, my memory seemed to weaken. I did well in school, but other things went by the wayside. Stress can also affect the memory.
"Chemo-brain" is a not-uncommon affliction that those taking certain chemo drugs get that has various symptoms including confusion & short-term memory problems, but these are all temporary problems that go away when the chemo is over.
You might just be over-burdening yourself!
Yes, 'chemo brain' often follows chemotherapy and it can last for years.
It's three and a half years since I finished chemo, and the memory loss and mental confusion still affect me sometimes, and most people I know who have had chemo have had the same experience.
The good news is it does get better; I'm not nearly as bad as I was, and now it's mostly forgetting the right word for something, rather than more serious things. It happens far less often too.
So things should improve for you, and hey, it's a lot better than having cancer isn't it?
Good luck to you.
It's becoming more and more frequently obseved.
I'm lucky, my brain seemed to get more clear on chemo. Go figure.
I felt that the chemo affected my brain and my husband was sure that it did. I probably compensate by writing things down more and looking up more things. I can't remember things a lot, like the word for something and then it comes. I had this problem before, but it became a whole lot worse after the chemo. People who didn't know me before probably don't really notice.