Training during chemo-radiation, novice

[M750]

Lifelong friend has a 19 yr old daughter who found out she has rhabdomyosarcoma on some nerves in her neck. She is starting chemo and radiation now. She was never a lifter but was a decent soccer player in high school so had some overall conditioning. Is starting training under proper supervision something you would recommend during the chemo/radiation? Obviously this would be limited but maybe a net positive for the body? Or is it recommended to wait until its over and train to rebuild herself? I think they are not far from Greysteel in the Detroit area.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Can't say with knowing more about the case. Contact Sullivan for his advice.

[M750]

Will do, thank you.

[Barry Charles]

Lifelong friend has a 19 yr old daughter who found out she has rhabdomyosarcoma on some nerves in her neck. She is starting chemo and radiation now. She was never a lifter but was a decent soccer player in high school so had some overall conditioning. Is starting training under proper supervision something you would recommend during the chemo/radiation? Obviously this would be limited but maybe a net positive for the body? Or is it recommended to wait until its over and train to rebuild herself? I think they are not far from Greysteel in the Detroit area.

Yikes…

I have an article on this site concerning my situation and it may offer some perspective.

That aside, all of these diseases are different as well as a patient’s response. I’m guessing resistance training is a good idea provided the bones are not compromised. You will need to seek out experts which may not be easy and may be confusing, and contradictory.

The side effects can range from wicked to mild and depends on so many things. Both chemo and radiation treatments require additional calories to recover from and again will depend. But in any case, I would make not losing weight a highest priority and this might be very difficult.

[Gilead]

While this is completely out of my field, I have recently been looking into medicinal functional/mushrooms. It might be worth it to look into Turkey Tail mushroom supplementation. Here, in this interesting lecture, Paul Stamets discusses how he believes that it was Turkey Tail mushroom in conjunction with his mother's cancer treatment (chemo-therapy with Taxol and Herceptin) that allowed his 83 year old mother to servive advanced, metastatic inflammatory breast cancer.

7:50 into the lecture he discusses his mother's story. Mushrooms as Medicine with Paul Stamets at Exponential Medicine - YouTube
The entire lecture is rather fascinating.

Trametes versicolor (Turkey Tail Mushrooms) and the Treatment of Breast Cancer - PMC

Disclaimer: I have limited knowledge in the above fields, so I am sharing this with you for research purposes only, in the chance that it might be beneficial for the parties involved.

[M750]

Is there a private message functionality on the forum here to contact Sullivan? Greysteel apparently doesn't answer the phone. I will put a message on that website but I don't know what frequency of monitoring that gets.

[Jonathon Sullivan]

I'm not sure I can recommend the assumption of training for this particular circumstance, but my default would be to give it a try. There is literature to back up the palliative (physical and psychological) benefit of training in such circumstances.

And there's anecdote: Last year I got radiation for lymphoma and I can attest that sticking to my schedule to the extent physically possible improved my attitude, my sense of self-efficacy, and the overall sensation of being alive. It helped me maintain my appetite and mobility and obviously prevented me from losing more gainz than I would have.

I can also attest that I was monstrously fatigued all through that and required significant deloading of both intensity and volume. This case, of a young woman with a sarcoma who has not previously trained under the bar, indicates caution, individualization, low initial loading, and careful progression, with all recovery factors dialed-in with exceptional care.

Short answer = "yes, but be careful and flexible."

But you already knew that, didn't you?



PS: We have a google voice account that apparently will not fuck off even when we tell it to. We have temporarily suspended our consultation service, and in any event Greysteel is full to bursting and, alas, not accepting new clients. Sorry to be so tough to nail down; Rip emailed me to request a response.

[VNV]

…
PS: We have a google voice account that apparently will not fuck off even when we tell it to. ….

If I understand, you might be able to take control of that number by porting it out of GV to another carrier, like voip.ms. If you don’t, and let the number sit idle long enough, it’ll be reclaimed and potentially given to someone else (but not, I think, without email notice from Google).

[M750]

Thanks Jon for your thoughts and thanks Rip for helping with the connection. I will pass the info along, and if they are interested in giving it a go I will cautiously guide her through the basics to the best of my ability, keeping the points you highlighted at the forefront.