Feeling very down due to all the side effects from radiation

Your experience is quite normal I'm afraid. My skin burnt quite badly at the end of rads & continued for about a week or so afterwards. It should start to improve now. I would use cool saline cloths on any areas that were hot to the touch & it helped alot. I had rads 5 years ago & you can't tell now.

I didn't start taking anti hormonals until a couple of weeks post rads, my onc recommended that I get over one thing before starting another. An extra week probably won't make any difference. You're allowed to have a pity party once in a while

2b2woods, welcome to Breastcancer.org, and we're sorry for what you are going through. Everyone is entitled to a pity party from time to time.

Here are some possible tips that could help: http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/radiation/sk...

Here are a few things you can do to make the skin less sensitive during radiation treatment and to help it return to normal after radiation treatment is over.

Prevent irritation before and after daily treatments

• Wear loose-fitting shirts, preferably cotton.
• Use warm rather than hot water while showering.
• Try to not let shower water fall directly on your breast.
• Avoid harsh soaps that have a lot of fragrance; instead use fragrance-free soaps with moisturizers (such as Dove).
• To help prevent redness and skin irritation, avoid having skin-on-skin contact. This most often happens:
  • where your arm presses against your armpit and the outer portion of your breast
  • along the bottom crease of your breast, where your breast might droop a bit and lie up against your upper belly wall
  • along your cleavage where the breasts snuggle up against each other
  To avoid skin-on-skin contact:
  • Try to keep your arm away from your body whenever possible.
  • Wear a strong bra without an underwire to keep your breasts separated and lifted.
  • If you have large breasts, when you're not wearing a bra, stick a soft washcloth or piece of flannel or soft cotton under your breast.
• Regularly dust the breast area and inside skin folds with cornstarch to absorb moisture, reduce friction, and keep you smelling fresh. You can use baby powder made from cornstarch (don't use talc) or sifted kitchen cornstarch. Apply it with a clean makeup brush or put some cornstarch into a single knee-high nylon or thin sock and knot it at the top. Gently tap the sock against the skin to dust the surface. If your doctor has recommended using creams or salves, apply those first, then dust the area with the cornstarch.
• With or without radiation, yeast infections are common in the skin fold under each breast — particularly during warm weather in women with large breasts. Signs of yeast infections are redness, itchiness, and sometimes a faint white substance on the skin. If you have a yeast infection, take care of it before radiation starts so it gets better, not worse. An anti-fungal cream (such as athlete's foot medicine) usually works well.

Manage irritation during and after your course of radiation

• At the beginning of treatment, before you have any side effects, moisturize the skin after your daily treatment with an ointment such as A&D, Eucerin, Aquaphor, Biafene, or Radiacare. You also can put it on at night — wear an old T-shirt so the ointment doesn't get on your bed clothes.
• For mild pinkness, itching, and burning, apply an aloe vera preparation. Or try 1% hydrocortisone cream (available without a prescription at any drugstore). Spread the cream thinly over the affected area 3 times a day.
• If areas become red, itchy, sore, and start to burn, and low-potency cream no longer relieves your symptoms, ask your doctor for a stronger steroid cream available by prescription. Examples include 2.5% hydrocortisone cream and bethamethasone.
• Some people get some relief by blowing air on the area with a hair dryer set to "cool" or "air" (no heat).
• Don't wear a bra if there are raw areas.
• If your skin becomes dry and flakey during the course of your treatment, moisturize frequently and cleanse skin gently.
• If your skin forms a blister or peels in a wet way, leave the top of the blister alone! The bubble keeps the area clean while the new skin grows back underneath. If the blister opens, the exposed raw area can be painful and weepy. Keep the area relatively dry and wash it with warm water only. Blot the area dry and then apply a NON–ADHERENT dressing, such as Xeroform dressings (laden with soothing petroleum jelly) or "second skin" dressings made by several companies. To relieve discomfort from blistering or peeling, take an over-the-counter pain reliever, or ask your doctor for a prescription if you need it.

What about sun exposure during radiation therapy?

• During radiation, it's best to keep the treated area completely out of the sun.
• Wear a bathing suit with a high neckline.
• Wear a cover-up when you're not in the water.
• Wear an oversized cotton shirt to cover the treated area and allow it to breathe.
• Avoid chlorine. Chlorine is very drying and can make your skin reaction worse.
• If you do swim in a pool, you might want to spread petroleum jelly (a product like Vaseline) on the treated area to keep chlorinated water away from your skin.

After your radiation treatment is done, the skin that has been exposed to radiation may be more sensitive to the sun than it was in the past. You can go out in the sun and have fun, but continue to protect your skin:

• Use a sunblock that is rated SPF 30 or higher on the area that was treated. (A strong sunblock is a very good policy for every inch of your body.)
• Apply the sunblock 30 minutes before you go out in the sun.
• Reapply the sunblock every few hours, as well as when you get out of the water.

The sulphur drug helped me a lot, but every inch of my breast and lymph node area peeled and blistered. My sister just completed rads and she sailed through with hardly nothing. Our whole growing up years, our skin was always very different.

It will get better quickly.

Not sure if you had chemo, but a Rad MO told my sister that what she sees as a rule is this: women who had chemo are on their way up and often improve during rads. Women who did not have chemo, are going down during rads. Just a generalization...

I too had a terrible time with RADS-not simply burnt skin but cellulitis and an infected seroma, toward the end I couldn't work, because I couldn't put on clothes!. It was BAD, but it sounds like your doctors are on top of this and I think even those who sail through RADs with skin relatively intact tend to get a bit worn down by the end of traditional radiation treatments. There is something about the every day at the radiation center that gets to most of us-treatment fatigue or something like that.

The only time I suffered throughout my mx and rads was the one week following the completion of rads. It was awful, but just when you believe it will not go away, it starts to heal quite rapidly and will soon be a distant memory. And I decided to go back to work that week! I remember feeling discouraged at that time too. Just when you think you are through the worst of it, it gets worse. Not fair, but temporary. Treat yourself to a movie or something to try to distract yourself from the discomfort. I also felt a bit feverish and ill, similar to a bad, very bad sunburn. Now is time to rest and pamper yourself and complain all you want!

You're totally allowed to have a pity party. I had a reaction to rads that sounds a bit like yours, and it was not fun. It peaked about two weeks after the last session, and then healed gradually over the next 2-3 weeks. Are you on painkillers? If not, you might want to consider it. I was going to tough it out, but my RO and her lovely nurse convinced me that I would heal better if I took something stronger than ibuprofen. Honestly, I took more painkillers after rads than after surgery, and it really did make a difference. That stuff hurts--you'll know when you can dispense with the drugs.

I found the sulfa cream helpful in the areas where the skin had broken down and used aquaphor everywhere else. I used a lot of dressings and changed them twice daily. Good luck; I'm SO sorry you're going through this.

P.S. Chocolate. Just saying.

Sure, have a pity party! You just went through the year from hell😜 If you can, take a few days/week just to recover. Be a slug, do something nice for your self.

The silvadine cream is a miracle in a jar. It will heal your skin quickly.

I second the chocolate!!

I was very fortunate and didn't have any side effects from the radiation. Yes, my skin got quite red and my breast was extremely sore and painful...but thankfully, my skin didn't blister or peel off.
I'm sorry that this happened to you!

That being said, I saw my MO on my last day of rads and he gave me a prescription for Tamoxifen, but told me to NOT take it for another two weeks. He explained that my body had just gone through quite a bit between the lumpectomy and the radiation. He said that I needed to take a break in order to give my body some time to heal.
So....if my MO told me that and my reaction to rads was much less than yours, I would assume his advice is just as valid for you. Obviously, check with your own oncologist, but I don't think there is anything wrong with taking a little break in between treatments.

I hope that you notice improvements soon and feel better!