I am wondering what sort of side effects some of have experienced with your radiation. i received radiation (20 Gy for 2 weeks) to the neck and sternum; hit from both front and back.
i finished my radiation about three weeks ago. my skin burnt and blistered on areas where i can only presume were beam exit areas and the inflammed esophagus with trouble swallowing. both of these were expected and i was made aware of.
has anybody had tightness in their neck, especially when turning their to the side where radiation was received?
i also have a bit of a tight feeling in my chest from time to time. i am sure this is due to the radiation irritating the section of lung. i know that the affected tissues and muscle will be irritated for a time, but i am curious what others have experienced and for how long.
sure i can ask my MD (and have), but i'd like to get it first hand from others as well.
thanks
randy
Hi Randy,
I had my radiation in the neck and chest area. From reading your other posts I see you had 10 radiation treatments. I had three full weeks or radiation and finished up the end of May, and until recently I still had quite a bit of pain in all the areas that had been radiated. The muscles in my neck, traps, shoulder blades, and all the muscles inbetween my shoulder blades were very tight and very sore - like I had worked out way too hard (but I hadn't). My body felt like it had aged 20 years and nothing I did would make the pain and stiffness go away (VERY light massages helped for a few minutes, but any type of pressure brought on severe pain). I went back in for a visit with the radiation doc and he said that wasn't a common side effect or complaint of radiation (unless surgery and scare tissue were also involved, which I did not have)- but he did admit that everyone reacted differently to it.
I finally got fed up with the pain and went back to the gym to hit the weights I had worked out every day prior to starting my chemo treatments)with the hopes that would help work the kinks out. After about a month in the gym the pain and discomfort started going away. I'm still a little on the tight side and don't have the flexibility I had before, but almost all of the pain is gone.
I started out very, VERY light, and even though I was stiff and it hurt like heck I tried my best to go thru the muscles full range of motion. Your guess is as good as mine if it was really the workouts that helped, or if it just passed with time, but I'm glad to be active and in half way decent shape again!
Good Luck!
Pete
Hey Pete,
thanks for the info!
thankfully i don't have any pain associated with my stiffness. my stiffness also seems to come and go. however, they did cut through muscle to remove as much of the affected node as possible(at my request) so i am sure that has something to do with it also. i am only 3 weeks out of treatment, so i just need to give it time.
ah, the gym..... i haven't seen the inside of one since May! that is on my wish list for soon as well. i will have to ask my MD when it will be ok to start light work-outs on my follow-up visit in a few weeks. i am certain i will be told to wait until i have my next PET to make sure there isn't any further inflammation (from starting to work-out again) to get in the way of "prime viewing".
I did rad from neck to upper ab. I am just finding out years later I have what feels like permanent sunburn. I thought it was stress for all those years. I'm looking for someone similar whom has treated this. Most Dr.s don't know about this. I would appreciate if you could ask your radiologist about treating radiation induced neuropathy and sharing what he says.