Calling All Ext Rad Patients, 3-10+ Yrs Later (Side Effects?)

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Three years four months post 36 radiation treatments to left breast. Tumor was deep, close to the chest wall. No chemotherapy.



Other than no hair in left axilla I have no apparent side effects of the treatment. I am very physically active and have no heart or lung problems. I fell, hard, about 2 years ago and hit on my left shoulder and side. No broken ribs I have no pain in the treated breast. There is still a little tightness in my left armpit but I attribute that more to the sentinel node removal than to radiation. I have no symptoms of lymph edema and am not especially careful of that arm except to avoid blood draws or BP on the left side.



I hope I can say all this again in ten years! Good luck to you.

NSJ2, do you have your final pathology report yet and do you know the size of the margins?  And have you met with the medical oncologist yet?  I know that it's standard practice to recommend rads after a lumpectomy but in your case, I'd be surprised if the oncologist presses hard for you to do rads. 

Also, a caution about relying too much on any research you do on this site. Everyone here will give you honest answers about their experiences, but you can't assume that these experiences are representative of what most women go through. Women who stick around here for years beyond their treatment (i.e. the group that you are looking to have answer your questions) are not the 'average' breast cancer patient. So if you get 20 answers and 5 of the women say that they had lung problems, you might assume that there's a 25% chance of having lung problems, or at least, that it's a pretty common problem. Of course that's not true at all.... the risk of lung problems is much much lower than that.  But if someone does have post-treatment problems, they are more likely to stick around here at BC.org for longer, or they may come here specifically to have others to talk with about their problem. It's important to keep this in mind so that you - or anyone else reading this thread - are not scared away from having rads because of what someone else might say or what they went through.  

Going on 6 years out. 30 radiation treatments to the left side, no problems or concerns then or now. I also did chemo and 5 years of Arimidex. Because I upped the exercise and diet components, I am in better shape than I was going in. And best of all, no recurrence.

I had cancer 5 years ago and at the time had implants that were kept in place.  Well, the breast became hard and now I'm undergoing reconstruction.  It has been about 3 weeks since the old implants were removed and I will be getting new ones in January.  I'm noticing that the hardness is still there.  Is there anyone that has found some way of minimizing this?

If you had radiation, I doubt you will see ant improvement.  They won't do expanders/implabts around here because the radiation makes it impossible a lot of times (like me) fot the tissue to even stretch enough to have what it considered a success and I wasn't willing to have a LD Flap or Tram Flap with months of recovering and so many chances of omplications causing surgeries.  They now how 1 piece bras that are kught weight, anywhere from sport's bra's to kacy, sexy ones, no cance of slipping or falling out like the older styles, so I'm, happy as can be not having anymore surgery.  I wish you an uneventful surgery and you're completely happy with