For years, the notion of "chemo brain" faced skepticism, often dismissed by the medical community. In this episode, we delve into the reasons behind this initial hesitance, demystify the symptoms of "chemo brain", and shed light on its recognition as a valid medical diagnosis. Moreover, for those grappling with "chemo brain", discover the available avenues of help and support.

Additionally, tune in to uncover a transformative resource that redefines our approach to health and weight management. Let's move beyond stigmatization and champion the message: health at every size.

Read the full transcript:

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This is Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm a healthy lifestyle coach, a clinical Ayurveda specialist, a personal trainer, and I'm also a breast cancer survivor. In this podcast, we talk about healthy thinking and mindfulness practices, eating well, moving your body for health and longevity. And we'll also hear from other breast cancer survivors who have reengaged with life, and have incredible stories to share. This podcast is your go to resource for getting back to life after breast cancer.

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Welcome to Episode 28 of the breast cancer recovery coach. I am Laura Lummer. And today we're going to be talking about chemo brain. But before we get into that, as always, I want to welcome you. And thank you so much for supporting the show for listening in and downloading the breast cancer recovery coach. Thank you for taking your time to write reviews and give a couple stars and review in the iTunes store. I really appreciate it. And if you haven't done so yet, and you enjoy listening to the show, please take the time to go to the iTunes Store, give it a rating subscribe to the breast cancer recovery coach. And maybe even take a minute and write a review and leave a positive comment to make this show easier to find for other people who may need to hear the information on it. Alright, so let's get right into this. Today we're going to talk about chemo brain, which is an issue that affects many cancer survivors. In an issue that was controversial for a really long time, we'll look at what chemo brain actually is and why doctors are acknowledging that it is a real thing, and what you can do about it if you think you're experiencing the effects of chemo brain. But before we get into that, I want to share a resource with you that I came across recently. As a health coach, my primary goal is to support my clients and adopting healthy behaviors. So even if your primary goal is to lose weight, we want to look at what's underlying that goal. And what behaviors are preventing you from attaining your goal, what healthy behaviors you can realistically adopt to begin moving forward towards a place that you think is a healthier lifestyle that fits your desires. So as obesity rates around the world skyrocket, so does the understanding that diets meaning calorie restriction, or the restriction of specific nutrients, that they just don't work for most people for long term weight loss maintenance. And as I've said on other shows, skinny does not equal healthy. So using crazy weight loss strategies, like I heard one the other day about a lady who's drinking three cups of a diet suppressant tea daily, so that she's not hungry doesn't feel like eating anything. And in between these cups of tea, she drinks water. This is not a sustainable way of eating and living in and it's not even enjoyable, who wants to live like that drinking tea and water. I mean, that does not sound like a pleasurable way food should be fun and should be enjoyable. And it's just woven into such the fabric of our society. It's woven into family traditions and celebrations. And we have to find ways to incorporate nutritious wholesome food in healthy ways and have good relationships with our food. So going on these kinds of diets that are really strict and really extreme. They're not only not sustainable, but they're not nutritious. And even if they do result in short term weight loss, they're not going to result in a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. So this is why I'm really happy to see organizations like the Association for Size diversity, create and support this program that I want to share with you called Healthy at Every Size. So I read about healthy at Every Size in the May 2018 issue of the fitness journal which is published by the American College of exercise, and I loved their approach to health. And notice that I said their approach to health and not to weight loss. This program is all about being as healthy as you can be at any size. And their philosophy is based on five principles. One is weight inclusivity, which you can imagine is means the Accepting of all people of all sizes without judgment, the focus is on health and not on weight. The second principle is health enhancement, which is helping everyone to access information services and teach them personal practices that will help them improve their well being overall. The third principle is respectful care. So acknowledging and putting an end to weight biases and to understand all the environmental factors that influence weight and there are so

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Many of them like socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, menopause, all kinds of factors, genetics, that impact people's weight. And we have to be respectful and listen to the stories of people. It's just so frustrating for me. When I come across someone, or in my experience, when I've dealt with health professionals and said, You know, I'm really challenged here by losing weight. And before they even ask me a question about what I do or how I live, it's automatic judgment, and oh, you need to eat less. Okay, that's some BS. And we need to just start putting that behind us. And dealing with people with respect and understanding. The fourth principle is eating for well being. And that is promoting your internal awareness. And you know, I love this and to promote that intuitive sense of eating. So you eat based on your own hunger, your satiety your nutritional needs, and pleasure, rather than eating for weight control, eating for calorie counts, but tuning into yourself, as you know, that's something I preach all the time, really noticing, what do you need, and when do you need it to have your body feel as good as it can. The fifth principle is life enhancing movement, which means to support physical activity that allows people of all sizes, abilities and interests to engage in enjoyable movement. Again, there's this word enjoyable joy and food, joy and movement, when we're looking at exercise, it's not only got to be enjoyable, but it's got to be something you choose, okay? It has to be is because if you don't choose it, if you don't enjoy it, it's not going to be sustainable for you. And depending on where people are at in their body size, certain exercise may be really challenging, and it may even put them in more of a high risk category for injury. And so you may have to start slow, and you need to work with someone who is compassionate and understanding and who's willing to meet you where you're at. So that's why I love this resource. And I wanted to recommend it to people that have a great website. I love their compassionate approach to creating a healthy lifestyle. Because dealing with weight gain, along with other changes that occur in your body, and its appearance as a result of cancer treatment is really tough. And then adding shaming and frustration, or fruitless weight loss attempts, that isn't going to help anyone and it makes things even more uncomfortable. It makes people even more uncomfortable. Feeling like it's okay to reach out for support because you feel like you've done something wrong, or you're not doing enough or you're not capable. And that's just absolutely not true. So I highly recommend that you check out this website. It's www size, diversity and health.org. They have a ton of resources, including blogs, free webinars, websites, books, and all kinds of educational materials available. Over the course of my recovery. I've been through a lot of different avenues in an attempt to lose the weight that I gained during my cancer treatment. And in exploring these different avenues. I've also been told some pretty ignorant and offensive things by health professionals. So I know firsthand that that kind of treatment that dismissiveness that judgment, it can be more than just discouraging it can eat away at your self confidence, or your feelings of self worth. And let me assure you that it is unacceptable, and that there are many practitioners out there who practice compassion, who want to help others live their healthiest lives. And so I encourage you don't give up on trying to find the right person to support you in the way you need support for what your personal goals are. So don't give into frustration. Or listen to these people who don't sit down and listen to your story before they start giving you directions of what you need to do. Alright, so check out that website. And I'll post a link to it on the show notes for this podcast as well on my website. Let's talk about our main topic today. chemo brain. So I bet many of you listening to this podcast have had the experience of telling a physician about some kind of side effect you've experienced going through cancer treatment or recovering from cancer treatment. And you've been told that your experience is unrelated to your treatment. And it's really frustrating, right? I just talked about that. When it comes to weight gain, right? It's infuriating. Well, it wasn't that long ago, that what we commonly referred to now as chemo brain was not acknowledged as a side effect by medical professionals as a side effect of cancer treatment. In fact, in 2007, York Times article that was titled doctors increasingly acknowledged chemo brain. Dr. Daniel Silverman who was a cancer researcher at UCLA, and he studied the cognitive side effects of chemotherapy. He was

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quoted in this article is saying that until recently, and again, this is 2007, oncologists would discount chemo brain, trivialize it and make patients feel that it was all in their head. Sound familiar? He goes on to say that now there's enough literature, even if it's controversial, but not mentioning it as a possibility is either ignorant, or an evasion of professional duty. I love this guy. Five years later, in 2012, I find an article that was published in USA Today. And this article stated that up to 75% of cancer survivors are affected by chemo brain that is a lot. This article was reporting on a study of 128 breast cancer survivors who had their brain scanned through multiple methods. Some are PET scans, some are teat, CT scans, and a couple of other methods. And their brains were scanned both before their chemo treatment and after it to determine if there was any change in brain activity. These scans were evaluated by a team of radiologists who were looking for any decline in the areas of the brain that involved long term memory, problem solving, organizing and prioritizing. And what they found was that every single person scan showed a change in their brain. So I hope you're already feeling a little less crazy if you fit into this category of chemo brain as well.

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Some of the symptoms of chemo brain can include difficulty organizing thoughts, or finding the right word to complete a sentence, mental fog having a hard time concentrating. However, these are also symptoms that accompany stress, anxiety, depression, menopause, fatigue, or that can result from hormone therapies. And so this makes chemo brain difficult to diagnose at times, because obviously, stress anxiety and depression are also common to cancer patients, both before and after treatment. So during their treatment and after the treatment, and of course, chemo throws women right into a chemically induced menopause, at least temporarily depending on their age. Sometimes their cycle will come back and sometimes it won't. So Dr. Tim males who's a behavioral psychologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering says that everyone calls it chemo brain, but it's probably a much more complex combination of surgery, chemo, radiation, and endocrine therapy all mixed together in one person that creates the symptoms. And that totally makes sense because we get exposed to a lot of chemicals and toxins were being treated for cancer and a tremendous amount of change takes place in our bodies. So a couple months ago, I attended a presentation on chemo brain by Anita Robin. And Anita is a speech and language pathologist at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. And according to her presentation, 14 to 85% of cancer patients who receive chemotherapy experienced chemo brain, and about 30% of these people experienced long term cognitive effects, like the ones that I talked about just a minute ago. Now, the most common areas of the brain that are affected are related to attention, memory, problem solving, reasoning, and other executive functions. So what I found to be really impactful when I was at Anytus presentation was the reaction she received from this roomful of women who had come to listen to her. As I sat there, and she presented all this evidence, you could just hear the sounds of relief, oh, and oh my gosh, and Oh, me too. As women, we're hearing her present this evidence that said, Hey, you're not alone. And you're not crazy. This is a real thing. chemo brain is for real. And for whatever the reasons might be, that are bringing it up, or whatever it is that triggered it, or whatever combination of things triggered it. It is for real, and a lot of people suffer from it. Of course, a lot of women who are going through breast cancer treatment, but other cancer survivors as well. So, in addition to that great news, that you're not alone, and that medical professionals do acknowledge it, there are several strategies that you can use to actually improve the symptoms of chemo brain.

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So in the presentation, Anita shared with us she also told us that the number of cancer patients she works with is continually increasing, which is really good news, because that means their doctors are realizing they're suffering from chemo brain, and they're giving them those referrals and they're sending them to this speech therapist to help get these exercises or understand different techniques you can use to help your brain work a little bit better. So if you think you're suffering from chemo brain, know that you can ask for a referral to an occupational therapist or a speech therapist, and both of whom can work with you and help develop

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program that will lessen the effects of chemo brain that you may suffer from. But among the steps that you can take to support recovery are getting enough sleep. And we all know that sleep can be really tough to come by when you're going through chemotherapy. And in my experience, it was also very tough for at least a couple of years after, and I know it can be different for everybody. But the effects of chemotherapy, and the impact it had on insomnia or not even just necessarily falling to sleep, or being able to stay asleep and have a sound night's sleep, or were pretty drastic for me for a really long time. And I know that happens for a lot of people. Another thing you can do is eat a balanced diet, including lots of fruits and vegetables. So you might want to just dismiss this step right off the bat, right, because you hear it all the time, eat more fruits and vegetables, eat more fruits and vegetables. But you hear it all the time because it's so important to get the nutrients from these plant based foods into your body. So really think about it, the more you hear, eat more fruits and vegetables, write it down, what's in your diet, how many are in your diet, there are phytonutrients and different chemicals that are in plants that we don't even know the benefits yet. We just know that when people eat more, they experience better health. So get those fresh fruits and veggies into every single meal every time you eat some kind of fruit, some kind of vegetable. In a book that I recently read called your brain after chemo, Dan Silverman and Idelle Davidson take a detailed look at how your brain works, what impact cancer treatment can have on your brain. And they lay out a nine step program to help improve your memory and focus. They also talk about nutrition, eating lots of fruits and vegetables. But also regarding nutrition. One of their suggestions is to consume a daily amount of at least 60 grams or more of protein, and 60 grams or less of total fat in your diet. I Dale Davidson is a breast cancer survivor. And in this book, you'll find stories of many, many other people who have just stumbled their way through dealing with chemo brain until they found someone that could support and help them. There's a lot of advice on speaking to your oncologist about chemo brain, and they present a really well rounded sensible plan to support your brain.

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So like the other resources that you'll hear in this podcast, I'll post a link to that book on my website as well. All right, another step, get regular exercise one of my favorites. Regular exercise can reduce anxiety and depression, relieve stress, improve sleep, reduce inflammation, and insulin resistance, while at the same time stimulating the growth of new blood vessels in the brain and stimulating the release of growth factors. So don't underestimate the value of moving your body. It is what your body was designed to do. And everything works better when you move regularly. So even if you have chemo brain, and it is a result of a combination of things, maybe some anxiety, maybe some depression, maybe some insomnia, all of those can be made better can improve through regular exercise. So get out and get walking, get moving, find something you'd like to do and do it every day. All right, another tip, limit distractions. And think of limiting distractions as setting up a schedule for your day to day life needs even on the simplest level, right? So you don't have there is no such thing as multitasking, right? I mean, unless you're like holding the baby and nursing it while you're cooking, I guess you could. But really, you can only do one thing at a time really well. Otherwise, you're kind of bouncing ping pong back and forth from one task to another. And that can be really, really distracting. Of course, social media, which we're all on can be a huge distraction. So here's a couple of tips to manage these day to day things that we do. Set up a schedule, meaning do your grocery shopping or do your laundry at specific days and time. So on Sunday mornings at 10 o'clock, the first thing I do is throw in the laundry. And then I write down my grocery list and actually schedule that out, write it out, commit to it, and schedule other things around it. The more routines you can create around your daily activities, the more it will benefit you and helping to be more focused and have a little more clarity. This can include things like putting your keys in a tray by the door whenever you enter or leave your house you're never running around looking for your keys. Sometimes I have a little carabiner things are actually snap it onto a specific place in my purse when I put

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have the keys in so I don't have to search for it. There's a tray by the front door so that I can put it in. And you just create a habit for yourself of doing these very routine things you want to use to do lists to support you and keep you focused. And that means writing everything down, you can take a large calendar, and schedule what you're going to do. So it's always a visual and put it up on the calendar. Or you can use your phone and set alarms in your phone to remind you of recurring events like taking medication, or maybe even picking up your kids or maybe even it's time to go to bed. Anything that you find that's frustrating, or that you're struggling trying to manage. Or remember, you find yourself saying, oh, keep forgetting to do that, set an alarm with it, write it down, schedule it. And this will help you to limit distractions. And this can also extend to social media, it can extend to email, you might schedule yourself to say I check email, once a day, or two or three times whatever it is you need. And these are the times that I do it. Same with social media, allow myself 15 minutes of social media at this time, this time in this time during the day. And if you can do that and set yourself up on that routine, then it can help you just not constantly being distracted. Shutting off notifications, oftentimes for social media can be very helpful. And for email, because as those notifications pop up on your phone and hear ping, ping, Oh, someone just tagged you on something on Instagram, then of course you're drawn in and you want to go look who just tagged me what did they have to say? So turning off notifications, and setting up times that you'll actually access that social media or access your email can be really helpful in limiting distractions throughout the day. So you can be more centered, you want to use the energy of your mind very wisely. And you can do this by scheduling your most creative or focused tasks in the morning when your mind is most rested, and most capable of concentrating. So if you have a big project coming up, or there's something that you really need to put a lot of attention and energy into, do that first thing in the morning and then save those menial task oriented things for later in the day.

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You can also make use of many brain training websites and apps that are available. And I'm going to post links to several of those on my website in this episode's show notes. So these are things like puzzles and games that challenge the brain, because science shows us that your brain has this plasticity. And that the more we use it, the more it actually grows, and it continues to make different connections. So if we've suffered some kind of impact from whatever our cancer treatments is, and we have chemo brain, and we are finding challenges and memory, then we can do things and use these apps and use this brain science to improve memory. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's the frustration of thinking that once your cancer treatment is over, you will go back to being the same old you and then you find out that that's not the case. But I hope that you do find some encouragement in knowing that you're not alone, and that there are many resources to support you. So don't give up. Don't think that you have to continue for the rest of your life dealing with a situation that you find frustrating. There are lots of resources and there are ways that you can get better. So I hope that you'll find me on Facebook and become part of our community of thriving breast cancer survivors. And if you haven't done so yet, please go to my website, Laura lummer.com and download my free ebook six habits of healthy happy breast cancer survivors. If you have comments or questions or if you have resources that you find have been helpful in managing chemo brain, please leave those comments on my Facebook page or find me on Instagram at the breast cancer recovery coach. I would love to hear what you have to say. So I'll talk with you again in two weeks and until then, let your lifestyle be your medicine the test laid all your doubts

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your mind is clearer than before your heart is wanting more your futures

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even all you

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know has

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you been waiting

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this is your