Liz, in my experience rads are nothing like as bad as chemo. I know a few people have bad experiences, but this is a very good unit and they were very kind when I had rads on the other side two years ago. You should get information about the process and how to care for yourself, but most of it has been repeated here.
It’s mostly common sense and being as healthy as you can in the run-up. If you have dry skin after your other treatment, you might want to use some sort of body lotion in the meantime–anything you normally like. For the setting up part, the drill is similar to a mammogram or other xrays–nothing perfumed, no deodorant, no talc, nothing that has metallic salts in it.
While treatment is going on, aquaeous cream is generally recommended as safe, but there may be some other products. The important thing is to avoid those metallic salts, as they can burn your skin. You can use what you normally do on your face and hair (hair, what’s that?) and probably on the lower part of your body, as they won’t get any radiation. I always washed my face & hair first, so that anything that got onto the radiation area would be washed away afterwards. You can use the aquaeous cream or something like simple soap for washing, but the aquaeous does have a moisturising effect. You have to avoid washing in water that is too hot in that area, or it’s like what happens after you get a burn, and will go red and sore. I found that out the hard way, but it was ok soon after.
No deodorant on that side, several recommendations for safe deodorants on the other side. The bit about trying to expose that boob, and perhaps that armpit, to air every day seems to help. If you do get sore they may recommend hydrocortisone cream.
You will get tired, but it’s nothing like the effects of chemo, in my experience. Drink plenty of fluids, eat fruit and veg (at least this is the right time of the year for that), and rest when you need to. Be careful of the sun, which you’d probably do this summer anyhow. You have to give it a few days to a week (I’ll have to check that myself) after the end before resuming normal products, certainly until any pinkness goes away. I never had anything worse that the kind of pinkness from the sun that fades by morning, with the exception of losing a small patch of underarm skin a couple of days after it finished–the last few treatments get a wider area and it was too cold to sit around topless by then. I put hydrocortisone on it which took care of everything in a couple of days.
I won’t actually start until June because of a holiday, but perhaps we will overlap at some stage. It would be nice to say hello.
Cheryl