Hi Dave,

Jack had amifostine given as a shot like Steve described. If you do a search of all open forums you will find lots of post describing people's experiences with it. There's no right or wrong answer to this - as you're probably already finding out - it's what you can tolerate and what makes sense to you given your individual treatment plan.

You need to talk to the radiation oncologist that will be treating you to see if this is even worthwhile if the gland is going to be fried. In Jack's case they thought they could minimize the impact on at least one side so the amifostine made sense to try. If that's not the case then I'd ask if there was any other benefit to it.

If you decide to try it you need to be prepared to follow their very specific regime about drinking fluids 90 minutes before, and taking strong anti-nausea drugs. Jack didn't have the nausea that Steve experienced but many, many others here have and it's the number 1 reason people don't complete the series of shots. We were told that the shot had less side effects than having it IV. Jack found the shot painful when it was being injected but other than that didn't have any skin reactions or problems.

There is no universal treatment plan so all of us have had different side effects and results. We've found this site very helpful in understanding the types of things to expect. There's good support in participating in a forum like this.

Your post didn't mention having chemo at the same time as the radiation. We were told that boosts the effectiveness of both therapies. There are several people with recurrences who are being treated with Erbitux, has that been discussed with you?

I think settling the primary treatment course is the most critical decision right now, is there a place that you can get a second opinion? Is there a medical oncologist on your team as well as the surgeon and the radiation oncologist? Did they present your case to a tumor board? I think I'd want all options considered at this point.

Good luck and let us know what you decide.
JoAnne