Now i dont mean naturally dark skin that has not been exposed to sun. I mean people who have regularly gone topless and recently gone topless before they started rads. Do you think this makes any difference to how sore you are during treatment.
I go for ultraviolet treatment 6 minutes a time once a week for my oestoporosis. I have an all over healthly glow.
Now obvioulsy the rads are a different wave lenght, but I was wondering if there was any corelation to previous sun exposure and rad burns
hi i used to sunbathe topless abroad and when i had my rads i was fine i had the usual soreness and a lovely triangular suntan when finished, ( looked as though someone had thrown an iron at me ) but had no peeling or scaring, will never go topless again but back in my bikini and slap on a good cream. hope this helps you.
Annie
I used to sunbath topless before we got all the warnings of the damage it does, I don’t really know about those who use sunbeds I have my resorvations about them too. Im naturally dark all over but the rads have still grilled me 
I noticed today when I got up its looking very dark reddy brown under my boob & has become quite sore there was me thinking Id got away with anything too bad but I think the rad team are going to tell me different when they see this tomorrow.
Remember the affects of the rads carries on for a few weeks after treatment & thats why its important to keep up slapping on the cream atleast 3 times a day for atleast a good 2 - 3 weeks after. I feel for those that have 20+ then aditional 5 - 8 boosters which really do burn the 15 is the minimum. If you do start to blister or the skin breaks you’ll have a good team of nurses there with lots of different creams & gel dressings. Anything you are feeling you must tell the 2 nurses doing your treatment each day they will send you to the nurses straight after treatment.
Hi OAL
My skin got very sore during rads but my friend who was diagmosed a few months before, and who is a naturist, sailed through with very little soreness, her skin just went a bit pink. Don;t know it that’s because of exposure to the elements or whether it’s just her skin but she had 25 sessions like me.
Hope this helps.
J xx
The rads techs didn’t seem to think it made much difference. I am fairly dark skinned and rarely burn, so thought I might be ok, but I really struggled with rads. I was very sore at the end, with several areas that were weeping. For me, it was any areas where the skin was touching such as under the breast and the armpit - even the tiniest wrinkles above my collarbone got inflamed.
Hi Finty its the bit under my boob that looked dreadful this morning not weeping or feeling too bad just looks terrible & my boobs are very small so not like the boob is sitting on that part it amazes me how some women manage to waer a bras throughout Ive been without & wont atempt wearing one until its looking & feeling ok … one thing im getting alot of air to the area.
Mekala x
Hi OAL
The radiographers told me that skin colour (whether natural or tanned) is no indication to how much you’ll suffer from SEs, in fact they told me that one of the ladies they’ve seen with the worst blistering and peeling was a lady with black skin. I asked the question because I’m very fair skinned and burn easily in the sun, so was worried about it, but in fact I only went a bit pink and warm and didn’t suffer any blistering or peeling. It seems to be luck of the draw - and also whether you have conventional rads or one of the more modern versions which are so widely available in other countries but not here on the NHS.
Sarah x
oh what are the new ones called?? is it a different kind of ray or can they just target it better?
I suspect Sarah means things like Cyberknife and Tomotherapy, which are highly targeted rads, and are not used for this situation.
I mean IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy) or tomotherapy (CT guided IMRT) which ARE used for breast cancer.
I was lucky to have IMRT, but only found out by accident half way through my treatment that that was the type of rads treatment I was getting.
They still use high energy X-rays, but 3-D mapped across the breast so that the dose is tailored to suit the shape of the breast and the site of the tumour. Conventional RT causes overlapping fields of treatment particularly on the underside of the breast and the nipple, which is why so many people get horrible SEs in that area.
Once again, we are lagging behind the rest of the world with this treatment. Because the breast is an awkward shape, most other countries use these more sophisticated treatments. The NHS mostly has the hardware to do it but is short of physicists to plan the treatment and radiographers trained to apply it.
Sarah x
Your so right there Sarah unfortunately very few hospitals do this treatment, I remember your post about this before my planning & asked about it the sister laughed & said in this country you’ll be lucky ! we do really need to up the anti on this treatment in the UK
The only way that will happen is if more people are made aware of what they’re missing out on in terms of better treatment and ask for it. At the moment there’s so little awareness that there are better alternatives out there that there is no pressure to improve the situation.
Sarah x