Your hands and feet on ice packs during some drugs will help prevent side effects. I had ice in my mouth when some drugs were administered. Frozen ice packs worked fine - I put them under my feet on the floor and laid my hands on them in my lap just flipped my hands over a couple of times. I also had a heating blanket over my body because all that ice made me very cold. Ask your Dr's office - they may have the ice packs and provide them. My Dr's office took care of the ice packs and the ice for my mouth.
Cold caps only work with certain drugs. Ask... I made my own cold cap, didn't want to pay the price. It worked, I saved 50% of my hair and no-one actually knew I was doing chemo. I'm very private and didn't want anyone to know. BUT again cold caps are very expensive and you need a ton of dry ice. I've been told something like 700 lbs over a single course of treatment but I didn't use dry ice. I made my cold cap from bagged ice in an electric cooler, the $3.00 per bag kind, soft ice packs and stretchy strips of headband type materials. My husband had to help me get it all wrapped around my head each time but the electric cooler keep it cold and only one change during the 5/6 hour treatment.
I looked ridiculous but only cost $300.00 over the whole course. If you get creative you can make it work. Just keep your head really cold but again only certain drugs - it worked for me. Honestly you could use bags of frozen peas if you could just keep your head cold. It's not the product - It's just keeping your head cold. Looking back on it, it gave me something to concentrate on besides the chemo.
Also one of my nurses told me if my hair was going to fall out it wouldn't happen until the 4/5 treatment. That was exactly what happened. It's a year and a half later now and I have all my hair back.
Edited by HopefulToday - Apr 27 2019 at 11:25pm