Radiation Therapy Side Effects

In this session, we are going to talk about radiation therapy side effects in layman’s terms. As it stands, there are essentially three primary approaches employed to treat cancer.

The most widely known is chemotherapy, then surgery and finally radiation therapy. Of course, it could go without saying that each of these approaches or treatments carries their own benefits as well as risks.

Of the three primary treatments, radiation therapy is considered to be the most effective way of treatment for many diseases and problems.

I did say I was going to talk in layman’s terms and I am. However, I do need to get somewhat technical to explain this next point.

Basically, there are two types of radiation therapy: external radiation therapy and internal radiation therapy.

Of the two, external radiation therapy is the most common. It involves beaming radiation directly onto the targeted area.

Internal radiation therapy, known as brachytherapy, involves inserting radioactive material directly into or near the targeted area.

No matter which variant of radiation therapy a person is prescribed, because each person’s body is different in terms of health, chemical balance, etc., different people experience different radiation therapy side effects.

On one hand, a person may have very little to seemingly mild side effects from radiation therapy treatment, while on the other hand another person with the same type of treatment may have many or what is described as severe side effects.

If you are wondering, presently at the moment, even with all of the technological and medical advances, it is still not possible to predetermine which person will have what radiation therapy side effects.

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If medical science could ever pull off such predictabilities, that would be a major boon to medicine and mankind. Even greater would be a way to minister healing to cancer patients holistically without any side effects mild or severe.

But I digress…

If you are facing health challenges that require radiation therapy, it is critically important that you have a conversation with your medical doctor about the potential side effects and the best ways to manage them if the event that they materialize. After that conversation, you’ll want to keep your doctor and radiation therapist abreast concerning any radiation therapy side effects that you are experiencing.

Additionally, you need to have a plan in place in the event that radiation therapy side effects become severe. By putting a plan in place, the emergency medical staff will be acutely aware of your radiation therapy and be able to address any medical issues with your treatments in mind.

That plan should include whom to and in what order and under what conditions. If your doctor is your first point of contact and you cannot reach him or her, who’s the next person in line. If the radiation therapy side effects are severe, of course you need to go to the emergency room pronto.