Com Supported MarijuanaNews. By Marilyn Chase Many of this country's 11 million cancer survivors have had to deal with the side effects of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy kills cancer cells, but also damages healthy cells in the digestive tract, bone marrow, hair follicles and other organs. Research is homing in on new rescue drugs for these healthy cells all the time. But some health-care plans don't offer the drugs to patients because they are so costly .
Nothing is easy, but there are tips that make it less horrendous.
Only after Schwartz was hospitalized three days for nausea did a counselor suggest the drug ondansetron, or Zofran, which quelled her vomiting. Now that has been joined on the market by a similar drug, granisetron, and more are coming. But by making tough treatment tolerable, they can enable patients to stay the course and get a shot at a cure. Moreover, compared with total chemo costs or, say, an emergency-room visit for uncontrollable nausea, their cost pales. Patients shouldn't accept misery as unavoidable, health professionals say.