Is it possible to rid your body of the effects of chemotherapy over time?

Answer 1

I believe so, my mom is taking chemo treatments currently and they have told her that allow at least 3 months for the chemo to leave her system. She also has to be very careful during now and up to those 3 months because many things such as make-up, manicures and pedicures and even dying your hair can have a effect because of the left over drugs.

Answer 2

Almost always.

The exception to this is that some people that have very toxic chemo can sustain permanent bone marrow damange. The manifestations would be chronic anemia, and sometimes chronic leukopenia (low white blood cell count) or chronic thrombocytopenia (low platelet count). This isn't very common and not very severe.

Also, some women can be put into a permanent menopause from chemotherapy, and this may not be reversible. Sometimes it's a desirable outcome and sometimes it's incidental.

As for the nausea, hair loss, and fatigue, that will all go away once treatments stop, usually within 3-6 months.

Answer 3

Yes

The trouble occurs when the cancer is difficult to get rid of an the chemotherapy is prolonged, or a second course is needed.

Chemotherapy is used in the treatment of cancers and is essentially based on using cell-killing agents to kill the cancer cells. Unfortunately the cancer cells have very similar biology to normal human cells (usually being derived from our own tissues) and so what harms them harms our normal cells too. The cells that bear the brunt of the effects are the ones that have high turnover rates of growth and replenishment - ie. skin, hair, gut lining, blood cells (marrow) ...

This means that at usual doses of chemotherapy, these cell types tend to be affected along with the cancer cells. Hair falls out, skin becomes sensitive or can slough off, gut lining can slough off and lead to terrible nausea or diarrhoea, blood cells can be suppressed, particularly infection fighting white blood cells, leading to reduced defence against other diseases etc. (Not so much with light chemotherapy, and more so with strong doses).

The flip side of this is that these are also cell types that usually replenish well once the chemotherapy stops - just give it some weeks to months and the skin and gut lining are back to normal ... hair takes longer to regrow of course, but the blood cells usually recover well also.