Cancer Treatment Options Forum - May 12th, 2011 - 4 Comments
How do cancer patients receive radiation?
do they stand in a room where they get lots of radiation exposure?
that’s how i always imagined it.
Does it hurt to get radiation?
Do you feel it during or afterwards?
You lie perfectly still while they align the equipment then the techs leave the room and the equipment starts. It operates for the required time for your dosage (10 secs, 30 secs whatever)
The techs then tell you that you are free to get up.
You get dressed again and it isa all over until the next day.
You don’t feel it happening, it is just like getting a focused x-ray.
After several weeks the surfaces in the area can get burnt and this can be painful.
By my 4th week of treatment I had what seemed like a bad sunburn.
By week 5 I had open sores where the skin had burnt and blistered.
The burning continues for a couple of days after the treatment finishes then the healing starts.
It can also cause lethargy/tiredness.
6 years later I still have scars and thickened skin in the area.
There’s a machine that focuses the radiation on where the tumor is. Brain, lung, liver, etc.
It’s a specialized machine that aims the radiation to the area being treated. You lay on a table and it takes about 3 minutes. You feel nothing before, during or after, but later after, it may burn your skin after repeated treatments. Mine did not. It just turned my skin brown.
No. They do not stand up in a room with a lot of radiation exposure. You are lying down, with an xray type machine that moves around, over, and in front of you. It is radiated at the area of concern. It takes about 3 minutes tops, and you do not feel anything nor do you feel any pain from it. You may get some redness/warmth to the area being radiated around the 4th week of treatment.
My radiation was for 6 weeks. I got mild redness, nothing else.