Professor Robert Thomas, a UK Oncologist at Bedford Hospital, has created Polybalm, which aims to stop brittle nails and nail loss resulting from chemotherapy; he has even conducted clinical trials on the product showing its efficacy.
One of the many side effects from chemotherapy beyond fatigue and nausea is onycholysis. This is when the drugs cause the nail beds to become so weak that they can become easily infected, turning black and so brittle that they can eventually fall off. Between 40% and 70% of patients undergoing chemotherapy suffer from this distressing and unsightly side effect which causes them a lot of pain and discomfort.
With such weakened finger nails due to chemotherapy, patients struggle with everyday things like opening cans of food, doing up buttons on clothes, turning on machines etc. For some, it can lead to bleeding at the nail bed or fungal infections, both very painful as well as distressing.
Up until recently, the only advice for patients was from anecdotal reports, and that was to massage petroleum based balms like Vaseline into their nail beds or to simply cover up the unsightliness with dark-coloured nail varnish, (neither of which providing much or any relief).
In hospitals, there exists the option to use cooling gloves, which serve to relieve some of the damage to patients’ nails. These however are not routinely used in U.K. hospitals as nurses find they can make the access to the patients chemotherapy ports (sites where chemotherapy drugs are administered to patients intravenously) difficult.
But thanks to the creation of this new topical balm - made out of a mixture of oils from natural herbs carefully selected for their richness in anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial as well as DNA repair-enhancing properties - patients can escape losing their finger nails without the need for cooling gloves, alleviating at least one of the common side effects of cancer treatment.
The balm was created by Dr. Robert Thomas who dedicates his time to finding self- help solutions for cancer patients to aid their treatment. He called the balm Polybalm, and it was put to the test via the gold standard clinical trial (double blind, randomised, placebo controlled trial) at Bedford Hospital (1).
A mix of 60 men and women with breast or prostate cancer took part in the study. The Polybalm was massaged into 30 of the patients’ nail beds while a commonly used petroleum-based balm was used in the other 30 patients in the control group.
The results of the trial showed a considerate reduction in physical appearance and nail damage in the Polybalm patients. Two thirds of the patients in the placebo group suffered sever nail damage while those in the Polybalm group experienced no symptoms; This had a massively positive impact on those patients undergoing their cancer treatment.
Chris Woollams, former Oxford University Biochemist and a founder of CANCERactive said, "Congratulations to Robert. Another good product to go alongside his POMI-T. CANCERactive patients know that one of the best ways of protecting themselves during chemotherapy is to keep their yeast levels low by taking oregano oil, caprylic acid or pau d'arco. Yeasts (fungi) play a big part in the nail problem and also debilitate and cause fatigue during chemotherapy. There are many sensible things people having chemo can do."
Go to: Ten ways to improve your chemotherapy and reduce side-effects
Reference
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10549-018-4788-9?utm_source=January+2019&utm_campaign=December+2018&utm_medium=email