Post Radiation Symptoms

jgbartlett

Hi all,

I finished 29 rounds of radiation the last week of November 2011. My RO skipped the last day because I was in so much pain, had a very bad reaction with 2nd degree burns.

Anyway, I know he said that the radiation would continue to work after the sessions,  but I have been getting back pain just behind where my tumour was, am short of breath, and have noticed my breathing a lot more (usually you just breath and don't even know you are doing it). 

I'm wondering if this might just be a reaction of the radiation on my lung, did others feel like this? The word mets keeps wandering into my mind.

dogeyed

Hi JG Bartlett,

I think I can answer a few of your questions, but not all of them.  My radiology oncologist doc sat down at the beginning and gave me a short primer of what would be going on with the rads.  She said they would NOT radiate my lungs, they would NOT radiate my heart.  Now, what I noticed after rads finished up was a bad pain in my left shoulder blade area, kind of under it, on the same side as my cancer and same side as where I was radiated.  They did one of the three zaps from behind, which hit that shoulder area in the back.  My rads finished very end of October, so it's been two months, and occasionally that back shoulder blade area STILL feels stuck, hurts, like a joint is out of place or something.  So, I think your back pain is probably like mine, and I imagine that's irregardless of where they put the machine to radiate you.  This is because the burn doesn't just go on outside, but also the inside.  The breast wall and under shoulder blade are only separated by bones and muscles, since they avoid hitting the lungs and heart.  So, logic tells me my back/shoulder pain and ache came from the rads to my chest, which is what I think you are feeling in your back.

Now, I have also had more general pain from a diff source than cancer and its treatments, which I had compression fractures in my spine from a car accident, so I live with pain a lot of the time.  What has happened to me as a result of pain is amazingly varied and unexpected, and this includes a tendency to get anxious.  I practice deep breathing ALL the time, whenever I get to feeling jumpy or nervous or my heart beats too fast, I breathe in very deeply, blow it out slowly, breathe regular a couple times, then repeat for perhaps a half-dozen times.  This lowers the heartrate and thus any anxiety.  Now, your shortness of breath may NOT be this nervous reaction to being in a lot of pain.  Could also be you have some pleuresy, which I have heard of other people reacting to rads that way, and some rad docs reject this, but too many patients here talk about it, where it hurts to breathe, usually along the lower part of the lung.  But I do not hear this from you, rather just shallow, quick breathing.  Anyhow, some folks do seem to have a lung problem of some sort after rads, so that seems related to reports of pleuresy I have heard here.

If I were you, I WOULD talk to the rads onc doc about this, just in case something else I'm not coming up with is wrong.  But do keep in mind, those rads keep burning for a few weeks after they are complete.  I somehow imagine this must cause swelling and inflammation in the chest, another source for symptoms.  It took me a full six weeks after rads to "come around" to where I felt normal again, and that's emotionally and physically.  My emotions were shot because I also went thru five months of chemo, then mastectomy, then rads, so when rads were over, the whole thing was over, and I went thru a strange process of letting it all go, quite an emotional experience.  And as I said before, I STILL feel a little discomfort under that shoulder blade.

One more thing on the swelling and inflammation from rads, I had my surgery a month or so before rads started.  That incision and surgical area continued to heal as I went thru rads, and I noticed when rads were over, the radiation seemed to tighten up the muscles and scar tissue where my boob used to be.  It was either a combination of rads and scar tissue or one or the other that caused a tightening of my chest in general.  So, when I noticed this, maybe four weeks after rads, I started to do my some simple upper body stretches they taught me for post surgery, did them very carefully so as not to strain anything, and it has loosened up that pulling sensation I had in my chest.  That could ALSO be what is causing your shortness of breath.

I hope some of my thoughts helped, and do revisit your rads doc, I'm sure they will be glad to see you, they always want to know what's going on after we leave them, and in fact I have a followup appointment in the next month or so.  I also worried about mets, on account of various pains and changes I had in my chest area as a whole, but I reasoned that after they burned up everything except my existence during rads, it stands to reason no cancer or any other growth is going to happen there, plus it's gonna hurt and be stiff for a while in the area, which a nurse told me it was normal to have wierd pains in the chest long after treatment ended.  GG 

jgbartlett

Thanks for your comment dogeyed.

Everything you said makes sense. I'll see how I go over the next couple of weeks and make an appointment with my onc to discuss further if there is no change.