Bone mets?

[marym]

Hi All,

I've had serious pain for about a week in my right side. It's severe enough that I hardly moved for the week - just layed in bed or on the sofa.

I had this once before and the doctor just had me take huge amounts of morphine - so I was in pain and doped up. This time I just dealt with the pain (since staying still eliminated it), but I called and told the doctor that I needed the cause determined. He has scheduled a bone scan for Friday - which is what I suspected, maybe ribs are affected. I guess this will result in radiation.

Does anyone have experience with similar pain? What was the result? How long was the radiation? Does it effect any other organs - liver, kidney, etc?

Thanks for any info.

Mary

[Don Wood]

Lucie has had multiple bone mets throughout her battle, starting at diagnosis. She had been given radiation numerous times whenever the bone met gave pain like you describe or if the integrity of the bone was jeopardized (fracture). It has worked well for her. Any tissue in the path of the radiation beam to the bone met can be affected by the radiation. That is the main reason they usually do not radiate a spot but one time. Don

[hollyanne]

Hey Mary -

My mom had terrible rib pain from bone mets...radiation zapped the pain fairly quickly. If that is what you have -- they will look for angles to avoid organ tissue..so it really depends which ribs are bad. In my mom's case, they were able to up the radiation to get it done more quickly since no organs were in clear site. In the meantime, tell your doctor that the pain is unaccetable...and get whatever pain stuff you need!

Thinking of you,

Holly