Peripheral Neuropathy Treatment Planning
We work carefully to determine the best treatment options for you and to prepare a treatment plan personalized for your needs. We try to maximize treatment success while minimizing the effects treatment can have on your life.
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT TREATMENT PLANNING
1Getting Started In Your Care
2Getting Your Diagnosis
3Planning Your Treatment
Considering Your Options »
4Undergoing Treatment & Follow-Up
Select your type of treatment below.
Assessment
Evaluating Options
Choosing Treatment
The team evaluates different options for your treatment plan, based on the details of your diagnosis, including:
- Your age and overall health
- Whether you have had cancer before
- There are a number of other consideration which may impact your treatment plan.
We discuss different types of treatment and how to combine them in a sequence that will best treat the neuropathy. Learn about treatments for neuropathy »
Your care team will explain the options and the possible treatment sequence. Your doctors will help you make an informed decision about which options may be right for you.
The best treatment for one person might not be the best treatment for another. There are three topics to consider when discussing with your doctor what works best for you.
Medical goals
Your care team will recommend treatment options based on your specific diagnosis.
- Improving function
- Managing pain or discomfort that undermine quality of life
- Working with your primary oncologist to avoid additional medications that may injure nerves
Personal treatment goals
As you and your care team discuss and make decisions about your treatment plan, it helps to think about your goals for treatment. These goals are different for each person, but health and quality of life are likely at the top of your list. Within those two priorities, there are several questions to consider:
- What’s important to me?
- What do I value?
- What do I need from my relationships?
- What do I want from the treatment experience?
It’s important for your loved ones to understand your treatment goals and wishes, so talk to them. You can ask family and friends for emotional support and help with a variety of issues during your care journey.
The effect of treatment on everyday life
Your care team can help you understand how various treatments can help you achieve your goals. Discuss what you want to be able to do, both during treatment and after it is complete. Issues specific to your health include:
- Treatment: How treatments will affect you and your ability to continue your everyday activities at work and home
- Side effects and symptoms: How to manage and cope with symptoms and treatment side effects
- Balance: Ways to balance aggressive treatment that prolongs survival with side effect management that maintains a good quality of life
Other important issues to consider include:
- Communication: Ways to talk to your family, friends, and others (such as co-workers) about your diagnosis, and how to ask for help
- Emotional well-being: How to manage your own emotions and the emotional impact of your diagnosis on your family and friends
- Relationships: How to maintain relationships with your partner, family, and friends, including intimacy, everyday activities, and responsibilities
- Appearance and body image: Ways to cope with changes that may result from treatment and the cancer itself
- Daily activities: How to take care of yourself, look after your family, and balance work responsibilities while undergoing treatment
- Travel and distance: How to manage family and work responsibilities if you are coming to Stanford from outside the Bay Area
The team evaluates different options for your treatment plan, based on the details of your diagnosis, including:
- Your age and overall health
- Whether you have had cancer before
- There are a number of other consideration which may impact your treatment plan.
close Assessment
We discuss different types of treatment and how to combine them in a sequence that will best treat the neuropathy. Learn about treatments for neuropathy »
close Evaluating Options
Your care team will explain the options and the possible treatment sequence. Your doctors will help you make an informed decision about which options may be right for you.
The best treatment for one person might not be the best treatment for another. There are three topics to consider when discussing with your doctor what works best for you.
Medical goals
Your care team will recommend treatment options based on your specific diagnosis.
- Improving function
- Managing pain or discomfort that undermine quality of life
- Working with your primary oncologist to avoid additional medications that may injure nerves
Personal treatment goals
As you and your care team discuss and make decisions about your treatment plan, it helps to think about your goals for treatment. These goals are different for each person, but health and quality of life are likely at the top of your list. Within those two priorities, there are several questions to consider:
- What’s important to me?
- What do I value?
- What do I need from my relationships?
- What do I want from the treatment experience?
It’s important for your loved ones to understand your treatment goals and wishes, so talk to them. You can ask family and friends for emotional support and help with a variety of issues during your care journey.
The effect of treatment on everyday life
Your care team can help you understand how various treatments can help you achieve your goals. Discuss what you want to be able to do, both during treatment and after it is complete. Issues specific to your health include:
- Treatment: How treatments will affect you and your ability to continue your everyday activities at work and home
- Side effects and symptoms: How to manage and cope with symptoms and treatment side effects
- Balance: Ways to balance aggressive treatment that prolongs survival with side effect management that maintains a good quality of life
Other important issues to consider include:
- Communication: Ways to talk to your family, friends, and others (such as co-workers) about your diagnosis, and how to ask for help
- Emotional well-being: How to manage your own emotions and the emotional impact of your diagnosis on your family and friends
- Relationships: How to maintain relationships with your partner, family, and friends, including intimacy, everyday activities, and responsibilities
- Appearance and body image: Ways to cope with changes that may result from treatment and the cancer itself
- Daily activities: How to take care of yourself, look after your family, and balance work responsibilities while undergoing treatment
- Travel and distance: How to manage family and work responsibilities if you are coming to Stanford from outside the Bay Area
close Choosing Treatment
Every case of neuropathy is different. The best treatment for one person might not be the best treatment for another. Your doctor will help you make an informed decision about which options may be right for you. Your treatment plan may consist of one or any combination of the following:
Watchful Waiting
If your symptoms are relatively mild or the result of cancer treatment that is about to complete, your doctor may recommend simple monitoring to ensure that your symptoms don’t worsen and require treatment.
Medications
Medications works through the body to manage symptoms of neuropathy. The type of medications your doctor recommends depend on:
- Your underlying condition and its relationship to the neuropathy
- The symptoms that are causing you discomfort
Types of medications for neuropathy
Medications that may relieve the symptoms of neuropathy include:
- Pain relievers
Over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications like aspirin, ibuprofen, or naproxen sodium may relieve mild symptoms. If you are in greater discomfort, your doctor may prescribe narcotic pain relievers. - Topical medications
Some creams and ointments with a substance found in hot peppers, called Capsaicin, can help manage discomfort. Skin patches with a pain reliever, called Lidocaine, also may offer some relief. There can be side effects of drowsiness and skin irritation. - Anti-Seizure medications
Some medications developed to treat epilepsy, like gabapentin and pregabalin, may relieve some nerve pain. They do pose side effects like drowsiness. - Antidepressants
Certain anti-depressants can sometimes relieve pain because they disrupt pathways in your central nervous system that carry pain signals. Side effects may include nausea, constipation, dizziness, and drowsiness.
Surgery
Surgery may be recommended if your neuropathy is caused by compression of a nerve.
If surgery provides a good treatment option, you will meet with a surgeon to develop a plan. Surgery for is different for every patient. Your surgeon will work with you to determine the least invasive and most effective surgery for your condition.
Combining surgery with other treatments
To achieve the best possible outcome, your care team may recommend combining surgery with other treatments such as medications.
At the Stanford Cancer Center, we offer multidisciplinary care for neuropathy. That means your doctors, nurses and other members of your care team work together to support you before, during and after treatment.
Your Doctors
Neuro-oncologist
These cancer doctors have specialized training in treating neuropathy, especially neuropathy that results from cancer treatment. They use medications and may discuss clinical trials that investigate newer agents to improve the chance of cure). Neurooncologists generally serve as specialists or consultants to your main health care provider.
View All {0} Neuro-oncologists »
Extended Care Team
This oncology-certified health care provider works with your oncologist to help with diagnosis and treatment. APPs may recommend medications, lifestyle changes, and services such as genetic counseling. An APP can be a nurse practitioner (NP), physician’s assistant (PA), or clinical nurse specialist (CNS).
Nurse coordinators are specialized registered nurses who provide one-on-one support to guide you through your cancer journey. MCCs serve as your point of contact to help manage your care, from your first appointment through follow-up visits. They assess your needs, answer your questions, make referrals, coordinate appointments, and provide patient education.
This team member helps with nonmedical issues such as scheduling your appointments, managing your paperwork, and requesting your medical records.
In Stanford’s team-based approach to cancer care. Every doctor on your team focuses solely on cancer, with subspecialty training in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Subspecialty training is additional, highly specific training in cancer care, within cancer education.
An anesthesiologist is a doctor who specializes in using medications to block pain, help you relax, or make you unconscious for surgery. Anesthesiologists also maintain your vital functions such as breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate during surgery. Depending on the type of surgery you have, you may need local (small area), regional (larger area), or general (overall) anesthesia.
This doctor supervises doctors in training or in medical school. Your attending physician may be your surgeon, medical oncologist, or radiation oncologist.
A radiologist is a doctor who specializes in diagnosing and treating cancer using imaging techniques including X-ray, ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Our radiologists have additional training and experience in cancer care. These doctors interpret imaging results and take biopsies (when needed) to help confirm a diagnosis. You may not meet your radiologist, since these doctors usually work behind the scenes to determine your diagnosis.
Working closely with your neurooncologist, your pathologist performs and reads laboratory tests to examine tissue samples taken during a biopsy. As with radiologists, you may not meet your pathologist.
This type of doctor is doing postgraduate studies specializing in the care of patients with cancer.
This doctor has graduated from medical school and is in training (also called residency) at Stanford. Residents in their first year are also called interns.
This health care provider is a student enrolled in Stanford’s medical school who is studying to become a doctor.
Support Services
Care team and supportive services
Depending on your treatment, additional health professionals may be on your care team. You may meet or hear about these team members during your visits.
Clinical nurse
A registered nurse will take care of you if you are hospitalized after surgery or need chemotherapy.
Genetic counselor
These health professionals have specialized experience in cancer genetics, the study of genes and gene mutations and how they affect a person’s risk of cancer. Not everyone may benefit from genetic testing. It is designed for people whose medical history shows the possibility of an inherited gene mutation.
Genetic counselors advise you and your family on identifying and managing any risk of inherited cancer. They work with you and your doctors to perform and review any genetic testing and help you understand the results.
Health librarian
If you are interested in learning more about cancer, our professional medical librarians can help. We offer free, science-based information on cancer and other health topics at the Stanford Health Library.
ITA scheduler
If you have apheresis (a specific type of blood transfusion) or chemotherapy, your infusion treatment area (ITA) scheduler will schedule your appointments.
Medical assistant (MA)
This team member helps you during your doctor visits by:
- Bringing you to your exam room after you check in for an appointment
- Providing you with a hospital gown or other clothing for your physical exam
- Taking your vital signs before your doctor sees you
New patient coordinator (NPC)
A staff member calls you before your first appointment to:
- Provide information that you need to know to prepare
- Provides a list of what you need to bring
- Helps gather your medical records
Occupational therapist (OT)
These skilled practitioners provide rehabilitation care to help you regain strength and functional ability during and after treatment for cancer. We help you with activities of daily living such as:
- Bathing or showering
- Dressing and grooming
- Using the restroom
- Feeding yourself
- Managing your medications
- Driving
Patient access representative (PAS)
This team member greets you at the front desk and registers you for your appointments.
Physical therapist (PT)
Cancer treatment can affect your strength and mobility, especially in the shoulder and arm. Physical therapists work with you and your family to recover your physical function after treatment, such as improving your:
- Strength, especially in the upper body
- Sensation, to relieve numbness in treated areas
- Range of motion, to reduce stiffness and pain
- Movement control, to improve endurance and reduce fatigue
Registered dietitian (RD)
Team members with specialized training and experience in food and nutrition work with you to understand your preferences and needs. RDs provide education about healthy eating and create a personalized diet to keep you healthy before, during, and after treatment.
Social worker (SW)
This health professional works with you and your family to provide emotional support, counseling, and resources such as financial assistance, spiritual counseling, and transportation. A social worker can also connect you with community services and, if you’re coming from out of town, help you find a place to stay.
Surgery scheduler
If you are meeting with a surgical oncologist or reconstruction surgeon or having surgery, a surgery scheduler will call you to arrange the details.