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Your Practical Guide to Preparing for Chemotherapy
Learning that you need chemotherapy can feel overwhelming. Along with questions about your treatment, you may wonder how to prepare for what lies ahead. While everyone's experience is different, having practical tips before you begin can help you feel more confident, prepared, and in control during a time that often feels anything but predictable.
The following strategies were written by the BrCAcademy team, which includes breast cancer survivors, to help you manage side effects, conserve your energy, and support your overall well-being throughout treatment. We hope that our prior experiences and current advice help to give you some peace of mind and keeps you comfortable during your treatments.
Why Do I Need Chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy uses medications that travel throughout the body to destroy cancer cells or stop them from growing and dividing. It may be used before surgery to shrink a tumor, after surgery to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence, or to treat cancer that has spread beyond the breast to other parts of the body (metastatic disease).
Stay Hydrated
One of the simplest—and most important—things you can do during chemotherapy is to keep yourself well hydrated. Drinking enough fluids helps your body process chemotherapy medications, supports kidney function, and may reduce side effects such as fatigue, headaches, and constipation.
Here are a few ways to make staying hydrated easier...
Eat What You Can, When You Can
Chemotherapy can affect your appetite, taste, and digestion. Your favorite foods may become unappetizing, or eating may at times feel like a chore. Making sure your body stays fueled during chemotherapy is key!
Here are a few strategies to make getting the nutrition you need to fight your cancer easier...
Move Your Body
While rest is important, movement can help combat treatment-related side effects including fatigue, nausea, pain, low blood counts, body aches, and deconditioning.
Here are a few ideas to help you move in ways that feel manageable during your course of chemotherapy:
Try walking each day, even on treatment days. Treatment-related fatigue and mood can improve with activity. Even a 5-minute walk down your street and 5 minutes back can be helpful.
Managing Anxiety
Before Treatment, even after several infusions, it is common to feel nervous before appointments. Here are some helpful techniques to keep you calm and confident.
Bring comfort items such as a blanket, pillow, talisman, or favorite hoodie.
Managing Nausea
Nausea is a common side effect of chemotherapy, but feeling nauseated does not mean your treatment is working better—and having little or no nausea does not mean it is less effective. Because ongoing nausea can make it difficult to eat and drink enough, managing it is important to help prevent dehydration and poor nutrition. Anti-nausea medications can significantly reduce and sometimes prevent chemotherapy-related nausea, helping you stay nourished and hydrated throughout your treatments.
In addition to medications prescribed by your medical team, some additional anti-nausea ideas include...
Preventing Infections
Your risk of infection is often highest 7–14 days after a chemotherapy treatment. This period of time is referred to as your “nadir.” It is the point at which your white blood cells are the lowest and your risk of infection is the highest.
Tactics to help you protect yourself during this time include:
Wash your hands frequently with soap and water, especially before eating, after using the restroom, and after being in public places. You may want to limit or avoid time on buses, trains, and theatres and stadiums where lots of people gather together indoors.
Give Yourself Grace!
Some days your chemotherapy will feel more difficult than others. This doesn’t mean you are doing treatment “right” or “wrong.” Focus on celebrating the small victories: completing a treatment, going for a walk, asking for help, getting through a hard day, and finding moments of joy despite uncertainty.
Early Effects of Chemotherapy: Fatigue
Fatigue is one of the most common side effects of chemotherapy. Unlike ordinary tiredness, chemotherapy-related fatigue may not improve completely with sleep or rest. Your body uses significant energy to recover from each treatment, repair healthy tissues, and produce new blood cells. This can leave you feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.
Early Effects of Chemotherapy:
Nausea and Gastrointestinal Discomfort
Some chemotherapy drugs can irritate the digestive system or stimulate areas of the brain involved in nausea and vomiting, taste, and smell.
Modern anti-nausea medications have greatly improved symptom control. Many people who take a personalized regimen of anti-nausea medications before, during, and after chemotherapy infusions experience little to no nausea.
Early Effects of Chemotherapy:
Hair Loss, Skin and Nail Changes
Most chemotherapy medications affect rapidly dividing cells, including the cells responsible for hair and nail growth as well as skin health. Depending on the medications you receive, you may experience thinning hair, patchy hair loss, or complete hair loss on your scalp. Eyebrows, eyelashes, and body hair may also be affected, but not always at the same time as your scalp hair is. Nails may become brittle, develop ridges, or become discolored, and skin may become dry.
Early Effects of Chemotherapy:
Peripheral Neuropathy
Some chemotherapy medications can affect the nerves in your hands and feet. This is called chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. Neuropathy may feel like numbness, tingling, burning, pain, increased sensitivity, or a sensation of wearing invisible gloves or socks. It can also feel like you are walking on rocks or jagged pebbles when you aren’t.
Early Effects of Chemotherapy:
First Bite Syndrome
First Bite Syndrome is a type of nerve pain that may develop during chemotherapy. It causes pain in the jaw and face near your ears. It feels like putting 100 sour candies in your mouth at once and can be very painful. The pain is the result of nerve irritation or damage from some chemotherapy medications.
Early Effects of Chemotherapy:
Changes in Blood Cell Counts
Chemotherapy affects cancer cells, but it can also temporarily affect healthy cells within your bone marrow, where blood cells are produced.
Long-Term Effects of Chemotherapy
Most chemotherapy side effects gradually improve after treatment is completed. Hair typically regrows, energy levels improve, blood counts recover, and many of the day-to-day challenges of treatment begin to fade over time.
Long-Term Effects:
Fatigue and Reduced Endurance
While treatment-related fatigue improves for most people within weeks to months after chemotherapy, some individuals experience lingering fatigue, shortness of breath, or reduced stamina long after treatment has ended.
Long-Term Effects:
Changes in Thinking and Memory
Some people notice changes in concentration, memory, multitasking, or mental processing speed during and after chemotherapy. This is often referred to as "chemo brain” or “brain fog.” You may find it harder to remember names, stay organized, complete multiple tasks at once, or maintain focus for extended periods.
Long-Term Effects:
Bone Health and Early Menopause
Some chemotherapy treatments can affect hormone production and reproductive function. Premenopausal women may experience temporary or permanent changes in menstrual cycles. Some women enter menopause earlier than expected following treatment.
Living Well After Chemotherapy
Many cancer survivors find that life gradually returns to a new normal after treatment ends. Recovery is not always linear. Some days will feel better than others, and certain symptoms may take longer to resolve than expected.