When and why should I bring up side effects with my doctor? I think it's very important to bring up what potential side effects may occur early on, in part because we have come a long way in helping to prevent side effects. And so I think it's always better to know about them early. We often, when we prescribe chemotherapy, at the same time we will also prescribe supportive care medications to help try and mitigate the potential side effects. We found that it's always easier to try and prevent side effects than to try and treat them once they develop. And so I would say as early as possible, ask about the side effects. Ultimately, the job of a patient's physician is to really truly understand and assess sort of where they are in terms of their disease and to try and craft the right treatment for that patient. And fortunately, our therapies over the last several years have gotten both more effective but also more effective without being as toxic. And so I think increasingly we are using less and less toxic chemotherapy, meaning fewer and fewer side effects that's safer for more and more frail patients. And so I think not being honest about how you're feeling might do you a disservice in terms of sort of misleading your doctor so as you get something that might be too toxic for you when there are other options that may be just as good and less toxic.
HealthTree • February 9, 2023