Whenever talking about chemotherapy, many people first associate it with vomiting until they vomit out bile, hair loss until there is not a single one left, and mental depression, or decreased resistance, and have a sense of fear about the side effects of chemotherapy. In fact, if you can roughly understand the reasons for the occurrence of chemotherapy side effects and the principles of prevention and treatment, you may be able to face chemotherapy frankly, minimize the side effects, and strive for the maximum benefit from chemotherapy for the treatment of tumors. The so-called “chemotherapy” refers to the use of one or more kinds of chemical drugs to kill tumor cells and prolong the survival of patients. However, since there is no fundamental difference in metabolism between normal cells and tumor cells, chemotherapeutic drugs kill tumor cells, but also often have a certain damage to normal cells, especially those proliferating tissue cells, like tumor cells, are most likely to be damaged by chemotherapeutic drugs. These proliferating tissue cells include gastrointestinal mucosa, hair follicle cells, white blood cells and so on, and the damage to these cells causes the most common side effects during chemotherapy, such as nausea and vomiting, hair loss, white blood cell decline and so on. However, these cells of normal tissues are more likely to recover from the damage of chemotherapy, making the damage of chemotherapeutic drugs to tumor cells more pronounced, thus achieving the goal of treating tumors. After recognizing the causes of chemotherapy side effects, we also need to clarify several misunderstandings in chemotherapy: many people think that as long as chemotherapy, side effects such as vomiting and hair loss will inevitably occur. In fact, this view is wrong, not all chemotherapy patients will have side effects. Each side effect occurs with some frequency, but not one hundred percent. The same drug may have a certain side effect in this patient and not in another, or a different side effect in another. And the same side effect may be mild in some patients, while it may be more pronounced in others, and it also varies from person to person. Therefore, don’t refuse chemotherapy that you should receive just because someone else is experiencing a side effect. Moreover, not all chemotherapy drugs have the same side effects. Some may have significant hair loss, some may have significant white blood cell drop, and some may not even have any significant side effects, and the side effects of various drugs are not the same. When formulating chemotherapy regimens, in addition to considering the factors of therapeutic effects, doctors will often individualize different chemotherapy regimens according to different patients’ physical conditions and different personal wishes for side effects. Therefore, if you are a patient, before you receive treatment, you should let your doctor have a comprehensive understanding of your physical condition and tell him your acceptance of different side effects, which will often make chemotherapy more acceptable to the patient and help to improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy. Many people believe that in order for chemotherapy to work, there must be side effects. This is also a misconception. In fact, there is no correlation between the side effects of chemotherapy and its efficacy. Effective chemotherapy regimens may sometimes have insignificant side effects, and chemotherapy that cures a patient because of side effects is not a good treatment option. The ideal chemotherapy regimen should be highly effective and low-toxic, striving for the best efficacy with the lowest side effects. With the development of medicine, more and more new drugs are being introduced, which often have lower side effects and even better efficacy. Therefore, at present, in the process of chemotherapy, patients may not lose hair, or do not vomit, or white blood cells do not decrease, but the efficacy of the treatment is more significant, so that the chemotherapy is more easily accepted by patients. Moreover, the side effects of chemotherapy can be prevented or treated, and reasonable treatment methods can reduce the frequency of side effects, reduce the degree of side effects, and shorten the duration of side effects. Here we will talk about the prevention and treatment of the most common side effects in chemotherapy. Nausea and vomiting are the most common side effects of chemotherapy, and they are also the most feared side effects by patients. It usually occurs a few hours after chemotherapy and usually lasts for 1-2 days, occasionally it lasts longer or makes it difficult for the patient to take in water. However, nausea and vomiting can be reduced with dietary changes and appropriate use of antiemetic medications. During chemotherapy, it is not advisable to eat too much, eat small and frequent meals, avoid indigestible and greasy food, cold and acidic food can reduce nausea, and distraction through chatting and watching TV can also relieve gastrointestinal reactions. In addition, do not refuse to eat because of the fear of vomiting, often forced to eat a small amount of food can reduce nausea, reduce gastrointestinal damage. Hair loss is another common side effect that affects the patient’s mood and is a common reason for patients to refuse chemotherapy. In fact, not all chemotherapy will lose hair, and the degree of hair loss varies from drug to drug and from patient to patient. And after chemotherapy is over, hair often grows back, even with better hair quality and color. In addition to the choice of drugs to avoid hair loss, some measures in chemotherapy can also reduce the degree of hair loss. For example, using ice caps and gentle shampoos, avoiding hard combs and hair coloring, and cutting hair short also makes hair loss appear less visible and easier to deal with. In addition, when hair loss is unavoidable, it is wise to temporarily choose a suitable wig, which will not interfere with the chemotherapy treatment and will not affect the aesthetic appearance, and you can change the hairstyle and color at will. Other side effects such as diarrhea, constipation, and drop in white blood cells are also treated by doctors and can be prevented by patients by changing their diets and lifestyles. Therefore, many of the current side effects are not a direct factor in refusing chemotherapy. When patients can recognize these side effects and understand their preventive and therapeutic measures, we will find that chemotherapy is not as scary as it is said to be, and there is no need to “talk about chemotherapy” any more.