Momtogirls,
"Hes been having terrible headaches and leg spasams that bring him to tears and often find him walking the yard all hours of the night to try to relieve leg cramps. Has anyone experienced this? id this due to the cancer? "
While I do not relate headaches to the side effects of bladder cancer, the rest of your description has an all too familiar ring. Others have noted similar trouble.
Immediately PRIOR to the first appointment with a urologist, side effects of what became to be known as bladder cancer hit hard. Frequent need to urinate, inability to urinate, blood in urine, and extreme bladder spasms. The spasms caused pain in the abdomen and both legs. Getting comfortable or sleeping was nearly impossible, except when the spasms would lessen for a while. Up and walking, constantly changing position, up all night until so tired that sleep was all but impossible while waiting 4 days for an appointment.
The best explanation given was that the bladder spasms were putting pressure on adjacent nerves. Very uncomfortable - in retrospect, I should have gone to the ER instead of waiting.
Lying on the back and placing a hot pack (warm) over the bladder helped, and followed by massaging the area over the bladder also helped with later bladder spasms producing the same leg and abdomen pains during treatment. Relaxing the bladder spasms was my key to lessening the side effect. WORTH A TRY.
ALWAYS talk to dad's care team with any and every problem, issue, concern or fear. It is the care team's job to get dad through this difficulty. They can't help if they don't know.
Thanks for being there for dad.
Best,
Jack
