Common Side Effects of Radiation & What To Expect

Everyone hears about the side effects of chemo, whether it’s from a movie or your doctor, but rarely do people talk about radiation and the side effects that come with it. During my treatment, I had the choice to continue doing chemo for two more months or do radiation four days a week for three weeks. I chose to go with radiation because I didn’t think I would be able to handle four more rounds of chemo. I’m still happy with my decision, but I wanted to write about radiation and what side effects I experienced because nobody really warned me and I had no idea what to expect. While everyone’s treatment length, side effects, and treated area will be somewhat different, you may still relate and find some similar similarities.

The mass I had was in my chest so they did radiation on that area of the body. Before you actually start the treatment, you have to go in so that they can tattoo you with little dots around the area that they’re radiating in order to get the most accurate area possible. I still have them and they just look like freckles, but I thought that was so interesting!

The actual treatment was much easier than chemo, it only took about 20-30 minutes each day and I just lied in a machine that looked like a CT scan. The nurses would put on my music of choice each day and I had to lay there with my arms up above my head.

My side effects included chest pain because of the inflammation that the radiation causes, skin itchiness in the treated area, added exhaustion, and soreness in my breasts. The pain lasted for a few months following treatment, but once I started introducing more nutrients into my diet and cutting out the processed crap, my inflammation completely went away, which I could tell from the disappearance of pain and the skin itchiness after only three weeks!

Hopefully this is helpful info, contact me today to explore how your side effects can improve or even disappear altogether!