Peripheral Neuropathy Following High Doses of Chemotherapy?

imperieux · Feb 17, 2006

I have a HH patient who had high doses of chemotherapy 3 years ago and is still suffering and I do mean suffering from neuropathy all over. He's been tried on 40 different meds and patches. Nothing seems to help. The best help so far has been Lyrica. 600mg BID. Huge dose! I was reading that patients often get excellent relief from taking Effexor. Anyone know anything about this or have any suggestions to help this patient?

Just joined this forum as a new nursing student and stumbled upon this post and question and thought I'd give my two cents:

After finishing chemo for Hodgkin's I have suffered from peripheral neuropathy myself and tried every sort of combination of pain meds. After so much trial and error, the combination of Lyrica and 40mg oxycotin (with small doses of oxycodone for break through pain) did the trick for me but I have never heard of anyone on such a high dose as 600 mg. I'm on 150mg and it's working.

As for the Effexor, some doctors ARE trying different types of antidepressants with some success. It's something that was brought up to me as well but I haven't tried it personally.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that my neurologist who is treating me has shown me some articles printed in Jama which state a new IV administered medication is shown to promote nerve regeneration. I have decided not to follow up on that as I feel I'm being managed appropriately at this time. I'm not a doctor, or even a nurse yet, so I am only telling you about my own treatment options offered to me, but perhaps this may be something he could look into?

DutchgirlRN, ASN, RN · Feb 18, 2006

Just joined this forum as a new nursing student and stumbled upon this post and question and thought I'd give my two cents:
After finishing chemo for Hodgkin's I have suffered from peripheral neuropathy myself and tried every sort of combination of pain meds. After so much trial and error, the combination of Lyrica and 40mg oxycotin (with small doses of oxycodone for break through pain) did the trick for me but I have never heard of anyone on such a high dose as 600 mg. I'm on 150mg and it's working. As for the Effexor, some doctors ARE trying different types of antidepressants with some success. It's something that was brought up to me as well but I haven't tried it personally.The other thing I wanted to mention was that my neurologist who is treating me has shown me some articles printed in Jama which state a new IV administered medication is shown to promote nerve regeneration. I have decided not to follow up on that as I feel I'm being managed appropriately at this time. I'm not a doctor, or even a nurse yet, so I am only telling you about my own treatment options offered to me, but perhaps this may be something he could look into?

Thanks for the imput imperieux, He went back to the neurologist last week and he reduced his Lyrica to 150mg TID since the huge dose was not helping anyway. He going to start PT and Anyodyne Therapy. He previously tried IV Gamma Globulin which didn't work and also a lidocaine pump on which he became toxic and ended up with DVT's and bilateral PE's from the PICC line.

Part of the problem is that he is a drug addiction counselor, actually he's the administrator of a large well-known inpatient facility and he's afraid to get addicted to any pain pills. He also started him on something for Alzheimers that is supposed to help. He's only 46 y/o but if it works, great.