Teleidoscope

Thu, Feb 14, 2008

Radiation Treatments

Posted at 5:38 pm MST to Miscellaneous

I hope google picks this up. It might help someone.

In 2005 I had several weeks of radiation treatments. When I had my 6 month followup with the radiologist, he said he was amazed at how little damage my skin was showing. I think there are three factors that contributed to this.

1. I have always put my trust in the SPF value of cotton.The skin on my torso just never had much radiation exposure, even UV, to deal with previously. (I don't tan, I burn or freckle or both. My hair started out dark, but ran out of melanin around the time I graduated from college. I don't think my skin had any melanin worth mentioning to begin with.)

2. For work-schedule reasons, when given the choice between fewer, stronger radiation treatments and more, weaker treatments, I chose the accelerated schedule. This shortened the time from when the stress on the skin began to when it ended and healing could begin.

3. I used huge amounts of 99% aloe vera jelly on the whole area targeted by the radiation, every day. To the point that I developed something like diaper rash because my skin was soggy all the time and rubbing against my clothes.

I really recommend the aloe vera jelly.

And 10% higher radiation doses instead of an extra week or two of recurring damage might be worth considering.

This is not to say that I didn't have after-effects from the radiation: the skin on that side is very, very slightly more leathery compared to the other side, and I think the underlying muscles got slightly cooked (no way to get the aloe vera to them). After nearly two and a half years I'm just finally getting them stretched out so that I can do yoga again. But part of the delay was waiting for the surgical scars to fade: I find that my scars stay pink and tender and sort of puffy for about two years and then fade way out.

After my thyroid surgery in 1986, my throat looked like it needed Frankenstein bolts as accessories for about two years, then, poof, the scar faded to white and went flat and became much less noticeable. I've noticed a similar pattern with other scars over the years, so now I generally assume I need to wait two years for a scar to fade and get flexible. I don't think there is anything you can do to hurry that part of the healing.

I was reminded of the aloe vera because I burned my thumb on some steam taking my supper out of the microwave, and broke out aloe jelly.

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