Proton Beam Therapy

That's fine and I'll try and keep it brief. I completed 33 proton beam treatments over six and a half weeks with chemotherapy at week one and week three at The Christie, Manchester where I have and continue to receive excellent care. The sheer number of people involved in helping me really is humbling and I am so grateful.

On diagnosis I was informed of all the potential side effects and decided that whatever was going to happen would happen and that my situation will probably not be the same as that of other people. I made a decision to avoid message boards and google (not easy) and take what came my way... Not to bury my head in the sand, but to try and focus on dealing with things a day at a time.

I would say up to weeks 4-5 I was coping with the pain and eating a fairly normal diet then in week 6 it was like a switch had been pressed and I could barely manage the forticip drinks. This in turn led to the need for a feeding tube which stayed in place for 10 weeks post treatment. The skin on my neck deteriorated around week 5, but healed really quickly and I've suffered hair loss, mainly on the side of my face where the treatment was targeting.

I'm currently taking almost no pain relief and eating fairly well, the main problem is a dry mouth which started as a late side effect 3 weeks ago. I also have some discomfort at the back of my mouth if I eat too quickly and "scrape" it with something dry.

Hope this helps.

Thanks very much for that.

In essence your reactions are not dissimilar to those you get with x-ray IMRT or VMAT.

Thanks for that, it's been very helpful

I wish you well for your recovery