New here with a question about radiotherapy

Hi there.

I am due to start radiotherapy in a few weeks with the breath hold.

I need to practice and found this link:

https://www.respire.org.uk/resources

I haven't yet tried this or practiced so I don't know for sure if it will help.

Anyway, sorry you find yourself struggling. I must admit that I'm feeling a little anxious too!

• Hi carol, I’m sure I’ve read some posts on here about the alternative, not everyone can hold their breath, I was right side so no need.  Hope it goes well x

I'm due to have my final radiotherapy session in a few hours. Honestly, the breath holds are fine. You have to take a deep breath and hold several times for up to 20 seconds. I used a nasal plug like swimmers use, to make sure no air leaked out through my nose, available on amazon or anywhere.  really don't worry about it and try to relax when holding your breath. Practice a a few times first. The process is weird but over so fast. The treatment tales less time than it does to get changed and them to set you up in the correct position. Thats undignified, to say the least! Good luck

Hi there - I started my radiotherapy this week and I have noticed that as the days have gone by it has been easier to hold my breath.  It could also be that I am relaxing a bit better too.

Each day before the treatments starts they always take a ct scan first to ensure you are in the right position & the longer you can hold your breath the better clearer pictures they can see of the scan.  They also mark you up with an x on your rib wall and this marking is monitored with a clever machine so that if you struggle with holding your breath it will stop the zapping. It may just mean that you may have to do have lots of little sessions instead. 

I hope you get sorted soon and finish your journey to get back to normality x

In my planning session I was able to hold the first breath for 20 seconds, but not the subsequent ones - I was generally quite short of breath at that time due to lower blood cell levels after chemo.

They didn't offer any advice or direction at all,  the response was "we will plan the treatment around it, we never used to use breath hold - it will be fine".

I still went for the planned amount of sessions but I think the CT scan helped them work out where to aim their calculations in order to avoid any problems.

It will get easier both with practice and as you know what to expect. They 'zap' you a number of times with quite long pauses in between and not always to the full 20 seconds. Practice inflating the top of your chest as this is the area to protect and holding there. I really recommend using a nasal plug to prevent air leaking. Feels horrible but I concentrated on that and the voice of the person counting