I took amifostine every day for the first four weeks of my rad treatment and then every other day after that. I have very limited saliva and the amifostine made me vomit almost every day that I took it. I think it was worth the gamble that it would help prtect my salivary glands but I'm not sure it worked all that well for me (I gather there is some data that it doesn't work for everyone) and it made my treatment much MUCH harder than it would have been otherwise.

Just the other side of the coin.

As for whether you should get the rad, if I were you I would--and I would have the chemo too. Losing salivary function is quite a hassle but not nearly as bad as recurrent cancer would be!

Nelie