How to Take Control of Your CLL Symptoms
How To Take Control of Your CLL Symptoms from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
From fatigue to swollen lymph nodes, Dr. Kerry Rogers discusses her approach to managing common chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) symptoms.
Dr. Kerry Rogers is a hematologist-oncologist at The James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. More about Dr. Rogers here.
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Transcript:
Patricia:
Dr. Rogers, we’ve talked a little bit about symptoms – fatigue, night sweats, swollen lymph nodes. How do you manage the symptoms of CLL?
Dr. Rogers:
That’s a good question. So, if people have enough symptoms from CLL that’s really impacting their life significantly, then I suggest they take a CLL treatment.
So, if people have big lymph nodes that are interfering with what they’re doing – like I said, that nice man that was too fatigued to get his mail off his porch – that’s a reason to do a CLL therapy, treat the CLL, and make those symptoms go away. The really difficult ones are when you’re not sure if someone’s fatigue is related to CLL.
So, there’s many people I take care of that are living with chronic levels of fatigue that are not enough to impair their daily activities much, and you’re not sure what it could be related to, so one thing I like to do for things that aren’t clearly severe CLL symptoms is try to figure out what else could be causing it. So, I know myself and many other physicians I work with closely that treat CLL – we think we might diagnose more people with sleep apnea than fatigue related to CLL, and getting your sleep apnea treated is very important. So, it’s always important to do a very thorough look to make sure that these symptoms are from CLL.
And then, in terms of milder fatigue, treating CLL won’t always make that better because people usually live with some chronic side effects from the treatment, and it’s really hard to improve on feeling really good. So, if people have some mild fatigue but feel pretty good in general, it can really only make that worse at some point. And, I find that people themselves find ways to manage. Some people who might be in the actually elderly category like to nap, especially if they can and they’re retired.
Younger people actually shockingly sometimes find moderate exercise helpful. And, I know a lot of people find moderate exercise helpful for other forms of fatigue. So, for people living with mild levels of fatigue, that is definitely – people have those strategies to exercise. A couple people really improved their nutrition and found it helpful. So, sleeping better, focusing on maximizing benefit from things you can do, is good.
In terms of night sweats that people get sometimes that aren’t too severe, usually, they find ways to manage with fans or things like that in the bedroom.
Patricia:
These sound like important quality-of-life conversations with your physician.
Dr. Rogers:
Definitely. And, I think any time people have symptoms, it’s always good to talk to definitely your hematologist, especially if you have CLL and you don’t know if it’s CLL-related or it could be, and then, also, your primary care doctor or your general doctor, because sometimes, they’re really good at thinking of what else could be contributing, and occasionally, it’s a back-and-forth before you really determine what’s causing this and if it’s CLL-related, but either way, feeling better is really important.
