Long term side effects

I had a lumpectomy for DCIS and just finished radiation.  The first problem you have is that they don't really know how much DCIS you have until they do the lumpectomy and look at the margins.  Some DCIS turns out to be so extensive that for us small breasted women, it can be "better" to have a mastectomy because they can do more for reconstruction because most mastectomies don't need radiation [CAVEAT, some still do].  And as you have already been told, and as I was told by two very excellent surgeons, radiated tissue can have problems when it comes to expansion, so many plastic surgeons [including the two I talked to] will not do expansion/implants on radiated boobs.  But there is no real way to know where you will fall on the spectrum until you have had the surgery and there is no way to know until you have the radiation because we are all so different.  Catch-22, if you ask me.

I think you have to decide what your priorities are.  In my case, I decided I did not want massive reconstruction so that ruled out the more complicated types of reconstruction surgery. But I also decided that I had never been that into my boobs and my most important thing was to be around.  So that ruled in favor of rads.

Also consider where you will be getting treatment.  Centers that focus on radiating breasts have special equiptment that deals with the fact that you need rads on the left [near the heart] or you need rads and are small breasted.  This means that someone elses reaction may not be the best predictor of how you will react to rads unless they got treated at the same place you will be going and still, you need to factor in the difference with different people.

I was surprised that I have reacted very well to rads.  I got red and I got sore, my boob swelled up and I got some blistering but all in all , it was not as bad as many people in my "group."  Also the skin that was the sorest and the tightest---under my arm--is healing really well now that my treatment is over.  I had my treatment at a breast center and my Zap Onco specializes in radiating breasts,

Good luck!

I had a lumpectomy in March and decided t do RadX but not Chemo....my oncocytDX was 17.  I'm really nevous about RadX.  In preparation for my Radx and seven week schedule, I had a CT scan done to determine the laser program and how it is going to be positioned to radiate my entire breast.  Anyway, my radiologist is having trouble coming up with a "program" that passes his specs.  Apparently, they want to do radiation so none gets on my lungs and the simulation is showing approximately 13% of my lung will be radiated.  Has anyone else experienced this issue with the setup of their radiation therapy program....I mean prior to actually starting radiation?  They had me come in today to do a PET Scan.  Tomorrow I go in for another CT Scan lying face down and hoping they can generate a program that will result in less radiation to my lung.  I just don't know what to think about this.