Hey Ya'll,
Eric is in the post treatment recovery stage being 4 weeks out since his last rad. It's reassuring to read about the issues that others encounter post tx and have helped us to be patient with his healing body. He's had a blood transfusion and 4 Procrit injections since Dec 31 and we're happy to say the results of Monday's lab work indicates his count is high enough to forgo the injection...at least for now. I'm also happy to report he's gained back 10 of the treasured pounds he lost.
Our current issues are:
-Continuous low grade fever - it hovers between 99.2 and 100.3. The dr's don't seem too concerned about but it nags at me perhaps the fever is due to:
-Thush, which is being treated with Fluconazole. He's only on the third day so we haven't seen any improvement yet. He hasn't experienced much discomfort from the infection although he does have:
-Two rather large sores on either side of his tongue next to his last molars. They cause him a great deal of pain and doesn't want to attempt eating until they have healed. The dr feels the Thrush may be contributing to the sensitivity of the sores...of course the proximity to the molars have caused a constant irritation. Dr mentioned the possibility of having the molars removed if the sores don't soon heal. Has anyone else had this issue? We really want to hold onto every body part possible for as long as possible!
I thank you ahead of time for your input.
K

Glad your fiance completed treatment, and is otherwise recovering. The Procrit injections can cause a fever, and so can Thrush, which is a fungal infection. Also, they usually don't give any injections after the hemaglobin goes above 12, and my local doctor stops at 10 due to the possibility of speeding up cancer, and tumor size, and not when a tumor was suspected. RBC have an average life cycle of 120 days, and continuously die off, so in three months the hemaglobin can start dropping again, as in my case for several years. The last drop was during my treatment, and my treatment hospital does not give procrit shots anymore, just tranfusions, which I had in November. Hopefully his bone marrow starts working properly after the chemo, if that is the cause, and doesn't need anymore.

I had a similar problem with my back molar being infected, 3 months after radiation. I had to do 30 HBOT, 20 before extraction, 10 after, to help prevent osteonecrosis due to having radiation to the mouth, jaw, and will need again for any extractions.

Good luck with everything.

HI there.. I've had sores post rads too, keep the area clean by rinsing out after taking any kind of food or drink. Rads causes swelling of the tongue etc... rubbing against the molars can cause further irritation. Also someone said something about the radiation bouncing off fillings... very possible to that this could cause the sores. So glad he is on the mend... slow baby steps!

"Radiation scatter" is the term for radiation bouncing off metallic fillings. I wish I had ceramic.