Radiation on hip?

[KarHart]

It may be possible my husband has a met to his ileum. He will have an MRI in the next week or so. The nurse said they would just "radiate it off". Can anyone tell me about this? I have seen where people have had multiple daily radiation treatments for weeks sometime. Has anyone had experience with radiating a bone mets? Thanks, it is a big help to get feedback from those who have already been there.

Karen H

[Anais]

Karen,

My mother had one big treatment of radiation for her bone mets located in the spine and hip. She had secondary effects that lasted about 7 days (fatigue, nausea). Radiotherapy REALLY controlled the pain, she could function well without suffering and increasing her MS-Contin dosage...

Good luck.

Anaïs

[stand4hope]

Hi Karen,

My husband had radiation for a met to his shoulder that was causing severe pain. He had to be on pain meds before and during the radiation treatments. I can't remember for sure, but it seems to me that he had 14 treatments, and the shoulder starting feeling better on maybe the 8th or 9th treatment.

They can give much stronger radiation to the bones than the lung, depending on where the met is located. The radiation completely got rid of the pain. His shoulder is just fine now, although he's a little more careful with it, i.e., he uses the other arm now to start the lawn mower, etc.

The cancer doesn't "eat" away at the bone, like some people think. It's just stronger, more aggressive, than the bone cells and the bone cells can't fight it off, so the bone cells weaken and can't fight it back and, therefore, deteriorate. The radiation kills the cancer and then the bones are able to heal. Works like a charm.

Hope this helps.

Love,

Peggy

[janetg]

Hi Karen,

As you can see in Ron's profile, 5 radiation treatments were done on Ron's back before any chemo was started. He was in such great pain - the tumour was located between L2 and L3 and at the time of diagnosis was very close to the spinal column. The oncology radiologist had prescribed decadron and zantac to have on hand over the weekend because spinal compression was feared. That was last year on the Easter Weekend. We were given a list of the symptoms to watch and were ready with meds on hand. Thank God we got through that weekend without having to use the steriods - Ron's diabetic and decadron plays havoc with blood sugar levels. Radiation treatment started on Tuesday. By day 4 Ron felt a few minuts of relief, the first he had gotten in a long time. Within 5 days of the conclusion of the 5th radiation treatment he was off all pain medication. Amazing results!!!

He recently is noting pain in his hip but that's being controlled with Ibuprofen so I'm thinking that he may have arthritis (they had seen some arthritis on an xray of the back last year). We went for a walk yesterday - he completed 1.2 miles without any difficulty and today he reports that he doesn't have any aches or pains. No doubt, after what he's gone through any pain or ache is going to scare him.

Sorry to ramble on but I guess you've figured out that we think that radiation was wonderful in getting rid of the extreme pain.

Best of luck with treatment.

Janet

[Don Wood]

My wife had radiation on her hip and also her tail bone. It is usually 10-14 repeats in her case. It worked well to remove the pain in both places, and to prevent further bone fracture in the hip. She has also had radiation on the upper spine and a leg bone. It was successful each time. With radiation, you can only have radiation in a specific area one time, since it does damage surrounding tissue. Good luck. Don

[sharyn]

Daddy had radiation to the hip, 10 treatments. No side effects whatsoever...