Radiation therapy feels different for everyone, ranging from mild to severe, but the most common feeling is significant fatigue, alongside symptoms like tired skin (red, itchy), hair loss, nausea, appetite changes, and mouth/throat issues (soreness, dry mouth, taste changes), with specific side effects depending on the body area treated; most effects are temporary and manageable, but some can be lasting, and the treatment itself isn't painful, notes the National Cancer Institute and Cancer Australia.
Fatigue (feeling tired physically, mentally, and/or emotionally) is a very common side effect of radiation therapy. This happens because radiation treatments destroy some healthy cells along with the cancer cells. Stress from being sick and daily trips for treatment can make fatigue worse.
Heartburn or Difficulty Swallowing
Radiation to the chest or spine may cause heartburn or discomfort in your chest when you swallow food or drink liquids.
Many people having radiotherapy feel tired (fatigued) a lot of the time or become tired very easily from doing everyday activities. This usually starts during treatment and can continue for several weeks or months after treatment finishes. It can help to: get plenty of rest.
For example, the following tissues and organs are listed from most radiosensitive to least radiosensitive:
The duration of radiation fatigue depends on patient factors and treatment details. For many patients, RIF starts gradually decreasing about 6 weeks after therapy ends. For some, energy levels return to pre-treatment levels within 1-2 months. But RIF may last 5 years or more for about ⅓ of patients.
Radiation enteritis causes diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and stomach cramps in people receiving radiation aimed at the abdomen, pelvis or rectum. It's most common in people receiving radiation therapy for cancer in the abdomen and pelvic areas.
Drinking lots of water and staying active can help patients flush radiation out of their systems faster. Not only this, but increasing your fiber intake is also a great way to increase the amount of radiation released from your body.
Types of cancer that are treated with radiation therapy
Brachytherapy is most often used to treat cancers of the head and neck, breast, cervix, prostate, and eye. A type of brachytherapy called radioembolization may be used to treat liver cancer or cancer that has spread to the liver.
While chemotherapy aims to keep the disease from spreading, radiation focuses on particular cells. Chemotherapy can also affect the entire body, while radiation repairs only the affected cells. Both treatments can cause side effects, including hair loss, nausea and fatigue.
Fatigue usually goes away gradually after treatment has ended, but some people continue to feel tired for several weeks or months after radiation therapy. Skin problems are common with external radiation therapy because the radiation travels through the skin to reach the area being targeted for treatment.
Preparing for Treatment
These scans provide detailed images of the inside of your body, helping your radiotherapy team to plan your treatment accurately and effectively. By using these images, they can carefully target the cancer while protecting healthy tissues, making your treatment safer and more precise.
If you're feeling very tired there are some things you can do to help depending on your circumstances:
Radiation therapy to the pelvic area can irritate the lining of the rectum, causing inflammation and swelling known as radiation proctitis. Symptoms may include blood and mucus in bowel motions; discomfort opening the bowels; or the need to empty the bowels often, perhaps with little result.
Radiation therapy has a 90-95% success rate in stage I, 85-90 % success rate in stage II, and 75-80% success rate in stage III. After radiation therapy, the patient is advised to visit the doctor for follow-up every three months.
General long term side effects
How Long Will Tiredness from Radiation Therapy Persist? People usually see a reduction in tiredness after several weeks of receiving a final treatment. Some people may experience excessive tiredness after the first treatment. Others may gradually develop a sense of growing fatigue over a period of weeks.
Talk to your provider if you're interested in trying:
For example, when treating the brain, you may experience hair loss on your head, but you would not be itchy on your chest due to brain radiation. Side effects generally begin 1-2 weeks into treatment and may peak 1-2 weeks after treatment is completed, then healing will begin.
Bone and soft-tissue sarcomas are the most frequent SMNs following radiation therapy, but skin, brain, thyroid, and breast cancers also can occur. Radiation doses less than 30 Gy tend to be associated with thyroid and brain tumors, whereas doses greater than 30 Gy can evoke secondary sarcomas.
When given equal radiation doses, the risks for children and adolescents are greater than for adults. Children grow quickly, and their cells are more sensitive to radiation. Since effects of radiation take years to develop, their youth extends the time for any potential effects from ionizing radiation to occur.
Within 4 h after irradiation, bone marrow cell and splenocyte depletion was first observed. Twenty-four hour later, circulating neutrophil and lymphocyte counts were significantly decreased due to lack of matured neutrophils and lymphocytes mobilized from bone marrow.