need help Taxol vs Taxotere

[hoofsnhounds]

I did round one six scheduled cycles of Taxol and Carboplatin with no incident.  I went for round two today and after 1 hour of pre-meds 10 minutes into the Taxol I pitched forward, got very hot all over, had diffuculty breathing, got an extremely bad metal taste in my mouth (much worse than the one from Iodine during a CAT scan).  They stopped the infusion and started Benadryl.  The doctor came in and refused to restart the taxol or try to slow it down.  She wants me to take a week off and switch to Taxotere.  I have stage IC with a good prognosis with 6 cycles of Taxol and Carboplatin.  I am not sure I have the same confidence in Taxotere besides I here it has bad side effects, llike vomiting and nausea.  Except for joint and foot pain whick thay are now managing Taxol has been a cake walk.  I also think that since I had no problem the Taxol first infusion, if they just try the same 5 hours vs 4 hours today.  Any thoughts girls.  Thanks for you input it is always helpful.

[PSHAN]

I was a 3C and my chemo consisted of six rounds of taxotere and carboplatin.  I am a 17 month survivor.  I have a cold today, and I told my dad the cold is worse than chemo was.  I missed only one day of work during chemo.  I once googled taxol and taxoteer and got a short article on the differences.  The results reported were similar with taxol having a slightly better rating.  
I lost most, but not all, my hair on taxoteer and had a thickening of my toe nails.  Not much to complain about.  Your a 1C...that's great.  best wishes to you.  Peggy

[alanpvegas]

Yeah it's fine to go on that, it's just regular 'ol Taxol encased in a compound that your body 'recognizes' (thus reducing dramatically reactions) allowing more to escape the immune system as well.  The biggest difference beyond that is the price....if you were to *not* have a reaction to Taxol then you should have stayed on it.  Hopefully your coinsurance is low on this!

[Kimchi]

My problem was from the CARBOPLATIN.  OC4, dx 2006, I had 12 cycles of taxol and carbo...all went well till the 10th cycle when I started to feel hot, nausea and itchy on my arms and legs.  After a good scratch, it passed and all went well.  On the 11th I asked that my drip be slower because of the last incident but no one listen to me.  Sure enough, about 10 minutes into the carbo, again, i felt hot, fast heart palpitations and itching attack.  Nurse slowed downn the speed and all went well...On the 12 cycles, the drip was finally slowed down but still had a reaction and drip was slowed even more.  Finally ONC agreed that I was having a reaction to the carbo and next round would be taxol only.