Radiation Side Effects

Your brain can play tricks on you but those are possible SEs. While I was doing RT, I had all kinds of random weird things. Sometimes there were all kinds of weird sensation is my abdomen. They warned me that you could get a slight sunburn sensation across the abdomen. I ended up taking advil almost everyday to deal with a general inflammation of everything. At one point I developed a twitch in my leg that the doc thought might caused by a slight inflammation pressing on a nerve.

One other thing that happens is that you tend to get hypersensitive to all changes in your body - stuff that we normally discount - and worry that the RT is causing something horrible.

It is a bit soon for real RT symptoms but with all they do to prep you, you may have picked up something.

The best thing to do is to keep complaining to the nurse and RO. As my RO often said, "We've got potions and lotions to get you through." The other thing is to keep up some kind of exercise program - even simple walking can go long way towards keeping the effects down and your spirits up.

The whole RT thing is an endurance test and a lot of the game is mental. Do things you enjoy to distract you mind when you're not in the machine.

Hang in there, you're doing fine so far,
Andrew

Alan,
My SRT in 2007 is mostly just a bad memory but I don't recall feeling anything unusual during the actual treatment sessions. By the end of the six weeks, however, I had bald spots in my leg and pubic hair and a mild sunburn, so it was doing damage that someone might have felt. It also played havoc with my bowels and urinary tract. Fatigue appeared about two weeks in and lingered long after.

I concur with Andrew's comments regarding exercise, mental health and viewing it as an endurance test. My treatments were 4 hours away so I bunked at my son's place with time on my hands and work going undone at home. I exercised and tried to relearn the guitar (I played as badly as ever) but it was all too easy to spend too much time with tv and internet and stewing about my situation and symptoms.

I know you will do better,
Bill

I had no side effects from srt other than loose bowels. Worst part was getting up early every day to get there.

Very important that you have a full bladder and an empty bowel when going on the table. Get your body rythm in sync with the radiation schedule.

It is early for radiation side effects, but by all means communicate clearly with your technicians and rad-onc. This is not complaining. Their mission is to first keep you healthy while killing as many of teh bad guys as possible.

You may also want to greatly reduce your meat intake in your diet. Orient towards foods that are processed more quickly through your system. Increase your water intake and eliminate caffiene and carbonated beverages. If you are not on Flomax, I suggest you do so. Also keep some Immodium D handy for any bowel irregularities.

InTheShop said...
I was hoping for x-ray vision but that didn't happen...

Interesting you should mention it. I briefly developed x-ray vision but was immediately blinded by the lineac. Perhaps if we had done protons...

I was the one, that on #4 of 39 treatments, began to feel a deep burning in my bladder area. The techs and my RO blew it off at the time. Each treatment began to get worse and worse, the burning increased, needed to be helped off the table. My SRT accounts are still buried here at HW, it was back in 2009.

To make a long story short, the radiation burned my bladder and bladder neck, due to having all my treatments being done on an empty bladder (had a Suprapubic catheter in place for the duration). In 2010, had to have major surgery to have my bladder by-passed and ended up with an Urostomy.

So please, report anything unusual or strange to your RO, don't take no for an answer if you are feeling burning inside. Don't want you to end up like me, with severe chronic pain and fatigue to this day.

Good luck