I am wondering about what effects radiation might have if you have it on two different bodily sites but within a relatively short time.

I have already had HNC radiation and I have some nerve side effects in my face--my smail is still not what it was and I think its because of some nerve damnage to nerves in my upperlip. When I press my skin aournd my lips or where my cheeks are still puffy I also get a pins and nedles feeling, as though there are dmaged nerves there--which I assume may get worse over time. And I had IMRT by the way.

But in less than a month I head back to rad. medicine for 6.5 weeks of radiaiton to my right breast where I had breast cancer. Back when I was diagnised with breast cancer (three weeks after being diagnosed with oral cancer) my breast cancer was small enough that I had a choice between lumpectomy/sentinal node removal followed by rad, or a mastectomy, no rad needed after. Obviously, the lumpectomy is a far less disfiguring surgery although these days, very good recontrstructive techniques exist for people with mastectomies--the main isse being you end up with a breast that has no nerve endings and that is, um, a loss.

So I chose teh lumpectomyh, but not without wondering if it was really OK to have radaition twice (to two different areas of the body) that close together. Originally, when I made the choice to have a lumpectomy/sentinal node removal with radiation, as opposed to mastectomy without radaition, for my breast cancer, I had been told that would be no problem by the then-rad oncologist here (who just after this, and before I was treated for oral cancer, left, rumor says he was asked to leave by Roswell Park who is managing the rad. medicine facility here).In fact, he said I could have the radiation for both together, something NO other opinion--either from his replacement or from the folks at Dana Farber-- has agreed would have been a good idea.

But by then I'd already had the lumpectomy--I wasn't going to go back and choose a mastectomy at that point (though actually the folks at Dana Farber suggested that might be the better option)and my rad oncologist here (who is from Roswell Park) said there wouldn't be any problme having one and then having the othera few months later. I asked him again recently about long term effects with so much rad exposure, though to 2 different areas. he said it's likely I'll have more than the average experience of fatigue from the breast cancer radiation and that "there was no good research on long term effects".

But couldn't there be some? I know rad. damages cells in the specific area but aren't there any system-wide effects that would be magnified? Does anyone kow where I could find more info. about this?

Nelie