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| Doris' Cancer Pain Clinical Trial Blog |
April 5th
I just wanted to write a little bit about a clinical trial that I am participating in. I am in my late 40’s and have been diagnosed with lung cancer. Unfortunately the cancer treatments have not yet cured my disease, but I hope they will some day soon. In the mean time, I am participating in a clinical trial to help with my pain. The pain from my cancer is pretty severe so I hope this helps. I just saw my doctor the other day and he told me about the trial. I was told about the medication, the side effects, and the potential benefits. Then I signed the consent form. In this trial I will be taking a medication that is already on the market, but it is in a new form. From what they told me I will need to keep a diary of how my pain is controlled and how much different doses of the medicine help. I will be allowed to take my normal pain meds if needed, but hopefully I won’t need both things. I am supposed to start the trial sometime next week and I will write again when I have more information.
April 11th
So, today I went to my oncologist and they gave me a box of pain meds. There are pills of different strengths and a diary for me to write in. I have to write down my pain level each time I take the medication and then 30 minutes, 60 minutes and 90 minutes after the medication. If the pain improves and is well-controlled then I take that dose again when I need it. If it doesn’t work then I can increase the dose next time I need to take pain meds again. We will see how it works. You know, I am hoping that this trial will help the drug company figure out the best way to treat cancer pain. Hopefully I won’t need the medications for long, but other people may.
April 14th
Yesterday I tried my first dose of the medicine. It was a very low dose (I am assuming) and it didn’t work well. I still needed to take my regular pain medication. I recorded a 9 out of 10 for my pain before and after the medication. I hope that the same thing doesn’t happen each time. This morning I am going to try to increase the dose and see if it helps. I hope it will.
April 26th
Now I think I may be getting a little relief from the pain medication. I haven’t written in a little while, but I have been busy with my treatment. I had to increase my pain medication dose four more times in order for it to work, but finally I got a little relief. Unfortunately, at the highest dose I took the pain control was great but it also put me to sleep. I guess I will go back down one level in the strength of the medicine. Maybe controlling most of my pain, and not all of it, is the best that I can do without falling asleep. I will keep trying at a little lower dose for a few days. I think I can stay on this trial for as long as I would like to keep taking the medication. Maybe after the medicine is in my system for a few days I will get some build up of the medicine so that it helps my pain without putting me to sleep. We’ll see how it works.
By the way, I am entering this information on this blog because I think it will help some people make the decision to go into a clinical trial. So far I have been happy I started this trial. I think trials are a good idea, especially if the medication will help people that have disease without cures. The possible side effects are all mentioned before the trial, so you know what you are getting into but maybe if more people do clinical trials they will be able to find god treatments faster.
May 18th
This is my final blog entry about this particular clinical trial because I had to stop participating in it. The pain from my cancer was getting worse and worse and the pain medication in the clinical trial just wasn't strong enough unless I took the highest dose possible and it would put me to sleep every time. I'm now back on the original pain medication that I was taking before this trial and am hanging in there...
My oncologist is going to put me on a trial for a promising lung cancer drug. The drug has been in clinical trials for over a year now but I was not previously eligible due to the stage of my disease but now the clinical trial is enrolling patients even with advanced lung cancer like me, I'm so hopeful that it will help me. I'm hoping to stay in touch and write about that trial on this blog, the drug being studied has helped so many people already!
I also want to say thanks to my oncologist, Dr. Brown, because he and his staff have been amazingly helpful to me as I deal with this tough disease... thank you dearly...
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