Cancer Treatment Options Forum - July 11th, 2010 - 4 Comments
Info from anyone who had radiation therapy for breast cancer?
My mom’s just getting done with her chemotherapy for breast cancer and she wants to know how other people did with radiation therapy. We’ve been looking up info on the web, but she wants personal stories of how other people did.
What did you do to get through therapy? What made therapy easier to deal with? What kind of side effects did you have?Anything at all you can think of to make therapy easier on her? She’s 67. Thanks in advance.
I had seven weeks of radiation and for me the biggest side effects were fatigue (probably from going every day), a slight burn which was alleviated from the great gel they gave me, and headaches. I was told that the headaches were probably caused by stress (although I didn’t feel stressed) and/or the fatigue. The radiation sessions themselves lasted only two minutes each time – although it took longer for them to set me up in the radiation field…so a total of five minutes for set up and radiation. Perhaps if I hadn’t lived one hour away from the hosptial it would have been easier to deal with.
In order to make it easier on her, she should get plenty of rest during these weeks and directly afterwards. Also, she should drink a lot of water to flush her kidneys. Not much else to do, other than try to get back to a normal life. She will see that it becomes simply a daily part of life, but will seem odd afterwards when all the therapy is done – I had a hard time getting back into the groove of "real life" because I had gone through so many doctor appointments, surgeries, chemo, and then rads at the end.
Wishing your mother well and tell her that this is a walk in the park compared to any of the other therapies (chemo, hormonal).
I had radiation for breast cancer. What helped me was that people were friendly, in the waiting room, and the techs giving the radiation. Everyone was really nice. Including the nurses and dr’s. The side effects I had was I was tired, and sun burned, plus I had a little blistering, they gave me great meds for that. It healed it fast. Good luck to your mom.
I would agree with mickey. Much more personal than chemo because she will be there everyday & the staf made it berable & pleasant. I am 39, worked through treatment so the hardest thing for me was the inconvenience of going every day. Physically, I had fatigue but nothing like chemo. With chemo I was wiped out, esp. by the end of the day but with radiation, it was harder to get up in the a.m. not so much feeling tired at the end of the day. She will do great. It really is almost a picnic compared to the chemo. God Bless!
Radiation was indeed much easier to get through than chemo. What helped my skin stay almost perfect was a lotion called “Biafine”. I started using it when I began radiation and by the time I was through all of the radiation treatments, my skin looked just ever so slightly pink like a really light sunburn. You can find it on the web. Everyone I’ve recommended it to has called it a miracle solution and I hope if you find it that it helps your mom as well. Also … to everyone, I recommend a book entitled, “Just Get Me Through This” to help not only the patient but the friends and family as well.
Best wishes.