Hi Anne Marie,

Here's my experience:

The radiation itself as it came out of the machine was annoying (the machine noises drove me nuts and being confined in the mask was occasionally unnerving), but not painful. The side effects grew with time as the mouth, tongue, and throat got more and more sore. Eating became very difficult due to pain and taste buds going bad (it's not just that I couldn't taste, but things tasted horrible - most of my diet became Boost Plus). There were pain killers (e.g., magic mouthwash which was a compound mouthwash prescibed by my dentist; also tylenol-with-codeine syrup), antibiotics, and mouth rinse (baking soda and salt) which helped with pain and infection (thrush was typical, and I got it twice; also some, but not a lot of, canker sores). I was fortunate to be able to eat by mouth the entire time (no PEG).

My chemo caused a little nausea, but not a lot. The anti-nausea drugs given at the time of the chemo worked fine for me. The Zofran discussed below also helped. So overall, the chemo was just sitting in a chair getting the stuff dripped in - playing cards and dominoes with my wife, sleeping, chit-chatting with nurses and other patients, and listening to my MP3 player.

The daily Ethyol shots also made me a little nauseous, but again, the Zofran helped a lot.

I never vomitted during treatment or otherwise. I also never got used to getting poked with needles, and still don't like them. I did get more worn out as time went on, and slept a lot.

The Erbitux caused a hugh outbreak of pimples all over my face and upper torso. The face pimples made the radiation mask quite uncomfortable. Steroids, as well as topical and oral antibiotics cleared them up pretty well (although even now I still get a few).

After treatment, I developed large scabs on the front of my neck (both sides, and a little bit on the back of my neck), thought to have been aggravated by Erbitux - these really bad scabs cleared up after a couple of weeks or so (I treated them with Aloe, then Vitamin E cream).

Kind of rambling, but that's my experience, which I also discuss in some my other posts. The treatments themselves were not painful, but the side effects piled up over time and were at best quite uncomfortable - definitely a difficult time but survivable. You can see posts by others whose experience was very different (and often worse) compared to mine.

Good luck, and remember that you need to always tell your doctors and nurses any time something doesn't feel so good - and be prepared to try different remedies when the first one doesn't work as well as intended. Also, if you have an idea about what might work for a problem, tell your doctor - my wife (caregiver) did this and really helped me out. Caregivers are great people and oh so helpful!!!

By the way, I was also 52 at the time of treatment.

Best wishes,

Chris