Topic: 2 WEEKS INTO RADIATION

Hmmmmm.  This doesn't sound like a radiation SE to me.  Usually, fatigue is the biggest problem.  Could this be a flu bug, maybe?  I'm sorry you feel so crappy.  You might want to mention these symptoms to your rad onc.  Do you have a fever?

Do you have a chemo port? Have you had it flushed recently? The reason I ask is, I thought I had a little 24-hour bug, and it turned out my chemo port had become infected. When my port was flushed, it seemed to kick an extra dose of staph into my system for around 12 hours. Please mention your symptoms to your doctor just to be sure. Radiation doesn't usually cause nausea, but it sure can cause fatigue!

That is BS that radiation doesn't cause nausea.  I know, because I was one of the people that it DID cause nausea in!  The first week and a half it was awful and I lived off the zofran to keep going.  There are a few things that I have done to help with the nausea...

1.  I ate before getting rads.  It helps for some reason.

2.  I eat small meals through out the day.

3.  I take benadryl to help with the itching which also helps with my stomach.

4.  The most important one the techs do..they started to give me a CT scan before every treatment so they are hitting EXACTLY where they need to and decreases the risk of hitting other things that shouldn't be getting hit.  I know it is increasing my rad., but in my mind it is a small risk if it gets exactly what it needs to hit.  I have gotten a lot better since they started doing this.

I know for a fact it was the rads also because I would start getting sick about 10 min. consistently after every treatment, until I started doing the above actions!

Shanagirl, it really is a mild form of radiation sickness. Some women do have nausea even though most rad oncs claim it's not from the rads (but they claim that about lots of SE's). I was one of the ones who had nausea. My rad onc claimed it wasn't from the rads, that it was SE from chemo returning (which apparently can happen) and might also be psychological since I was returning to the bldg where I had the chemo. Pointed out that 1) I didn't have nausea with chemo and 2)had chemo at a different hospital. He still said it wasn't from the rads. I'm not sure how close my stomach and esophagus were to the radiation field but for heaven's sake didn't he ever hear about scatter? I mean, those techs run like heck out of the room before they turn on the machine!

I finished rads mid-Aug and still get nausea.

Leah

something that really helped me was taking time to rest...every day. (if you can....i know it is hard with kids..work) but our bodies heal when we rest.  rads made me feel like i was "dragging" and when i could; i would just go upstairs....lay on my bed....rest...doze...hang out with the cats...etc.  feet up...head on a nice pillow...and let the healing begin.  hang in there shanagirl. thre is light at the end of the treatment tunnel.  hard to see sometimes...but it is there..

That sucks that you are having nausea with rads!!  Maybe I didn't have that because I was taking 1mg of Ativan a day all during treatment.  It kept me out of the crazy tree.