Dealing With Peripheral Neuropathy After Breast Cancer Treatment

Ten years after first being diagnosed with breast cancer, Cynthia Malaran said she still faces some side effects from treatment, but she has found strategies for coping.

Malaran — who received a diagnosis of triple-positive breast cancer in 2015 at the age of 39 — received treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, including a double mastectomy and chemotherapy. And, as she told CURE in a recent interview, she has found ways of dealing with her chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.

Peripheral neuropathy, as defined by the American Cancer Society, is a condition caused by damage to the peripheral nervous system that can cause symptoms such as pain, weakness, tingling, numbness or sensitivity, often in the hands or feet.

Transcript

No hiding anything, in full transparency, the only things that persist are, obviously, I had a double mastectomy, and I chose no reconstruction. So I have scars, but I have great tattoos, and I love my body, and I feel healthy in my body.

And the other thing that persists is the neuropathy. I have chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, which manifests as numbness in my hands and my forearms and my lower legs, the extremities, everything they said was likely to happen when you go through chemotherapy. So, I live with that. I don't think that gets better. I feel it more on some days than others. Especially, I'm seeing a pattern with the weather, stress and maybe even sugar — I don't know that for a fact, but I have a hunch, and then I do things to mitigate the pain and distract from these tingly, burning, sometimes itchy sensations. I have a service dog that she sits on my lap and gives me that deep pressure therapy to take my mind off of tingling in my extremities to a furry, cute, fuzzy thing in my lap, and that is amazing.

So, you have to be a problem solver, in a way, with your own experience. Because things that work for me, I hadn't found really in on YouTube or on the internet or in asking people, because everyone's cancer is their own and their journey is their own. That goes with anything, even your flu, your flu is your own, and whatever helps you get rest, feel better, and most importantly, have peace about what you're going through keeps you moving forward.

Reference

1. “Peripheral neuropathy,” American Cancer Society; https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/side-effects/pain/peripheral-neuropathy.html

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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