Sick During Off Week Of Sutent

my dad finished up his 1st cycle of sutent. he is on his 2nd week of no medicine.  up till now, the 2 weeks off medicine were going ok (despite low WBCs & RBCs). however, over the weekend, he seemed to feel worse than he has been(i.e loss of appetite, vomiting, fatigue - all more than normal). has anyone else experienced this during thier off weeks? he does not have any symptoms of a virus or cold such as a temperature etc. so i cant tell whats going on.

 please advise if anyone has experienced anything like this.

 

thanks.

My husband just finished his second round. The first round was a breeze with few very mild side effects. During the break he also started radiation so what followed could be a combo of the two treatments. It was downhill from the beginning of the break on .Blood counts dropped and then bottomed out.Progressive nausea, fatigue, and worst of all uncontrollable diarrhea. Fortunate that each day got progressively worse so he was able to complete all but the last day of the cycle. His onc said they would play around with the dose next round. I hear that the drug builds in your system so it is still there during breaks,but they can alter your fathers dose to make his quality of life much better.The side effects will scare you It's like you are watching them be poisoned right before your eyes ,isn't it. It doesn't have to be that way now that they know what he can tolerate .              Dorothy in N.C.               

My husband is finishing cycle 10 this Sunday and for the past 4 cycles he has suffered on his time off.  The second week is worse and he has pain in his back and sides.  He sometimes has that much pain it causes him to lose his appetite and causes vomiting.  His oncologist explains it as the cancer is in withdrawals from the sutent.  It has to the metabolic make up of the drug and what it does to the tumors.  It is a side effect.  Hope this helps

Mary

Hi

My husband is just finishing his 19th round of Sutent. His first round was also a breeze but did feel worse on his two weeks off. This went on for a few months and then it gradually began to change where he felt better on the two weeks off and worse during the 28 days on.  Now he experiences really bad times the last two weeks of his Sutent and the first week off. He doesn't eat and has more pain. Not eating means a lack of protein which also caused water retention. He is now on 100mcg/hr and supplementing with Norco. The Norco has caused all kinds of problems such as shortness of breath to the point he had to sleep sitting up. That in turn has caused him to develop bed sores on his bottom (very painful). In addition to that he retained  so much water that he gained 45 pounds and the fluid was visible on his last CT. He is now on Lasix to try to remedy that. So far has lost 32 pounds of it. Because of the bedsores he is now bedridden and confined to sleeping on his side only, switching periodically. We now have visiting nurses twice a week which helps.

Although the Sutent has kept the tumors from growing, all kinds of different issues have cropped up.  He recently is having trouble swallowing, although not all the time.