Hello Megzy - so I have been told there are surgeons who are happy to do DIEP before radio and surgeons who aren't. To some extent you are where you are - you've had the DIEP and now radio is recommended - just try to go with the flow and don't let people scare you. I had DIEP at the beginning of April followed by 3 weeks of radio starting 20 June which was always planned. My surgeon thought it was an acceptable risk. I had "sunburn" on the DIEP "foob" for a few weeks and eventually some painless skin peeling in the crease underneath as new skin came through but nothing worse than that. The radio doesn't hurt and didn't make me feel ill at all. The foob seems fine to me now. Seeing the plastic surgeon to have it checked over next week as routine but i haven't noticed any problems so far. Hopefully all will be well for you and you will have the added reassurance of knowing you had radio to mop up any rogue cells. Best wishes. Xx
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Hello everyone, following a diagnosis of extensive DCIS in April this year, I had a skin sparing mastectomy and DIEP reconstruction in June - I had also undergone sentinel lymph node biopsy to confirm that cancer had not spread beyond my left breast. This was at the Plastic Surgeon's request as he did not want to undertake immediate reconstruction if there was a likelihood of my needing either radiotherapy or chemotherapy after mastectomy. Unfortunately, it seems that the analysis of tissue removed from my breast included a small area of HER2 positive cancer, which means I will need post operative treatment after all - namely a three week course of daily radiotherapy. I understand that this could damage the DIEP flap and am really anxious about this, having had 8 hours surgery and - so far - 9 weeks in recovery. Has anyone had experience of the effects of radiotherapy on a DIEP flap reconstruction please? I'd really appreciate your thoughts and experiences. Thanks in advance, Megzy xxx
