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Ask questions and work with your health care team to prepare for chemotherapy so that you know what side effects to expect and how to manage them.
Chemotherapy works by killing rapidly dividing cancer cells. But as it wipes out cancer cells, chemotherapy can also destroy fast-growing healthy cells. This may cause you to experience side effects.
Your bone marrow's ability to make blood cells might decrease.
Chemotherapy may affect your digestive system by causing:
Chemotherapy targets rapidly growing cells, including healthy cells in your hair. Hair loss happens most often on the scalp but your eyebrows and eyelashes may thin, too.
Fortunately, hair loss is almost always temporary. If you're concerned about this side effect, ask your doctor about strategies to minimize hair loss, such as cooling caps.
Chemotherapy drugs go through your bloodstream and can affect your whole body. That can cause symptoms such as:
Consider preparing a list of questions about side effects to ask your health care team so that you can get ready for chemotherapy.
Here are some questions you can ask:
After you start treatment, it's important to tell your health care team about all the side effects you experience. The earlier they know, the more likely they can prevent side effects from becoming more-serious problems.
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