Hi I was wondering if anyone has any experience with radiation to the vagina that they wouldn't mind sharing with what to expect?
I started off with vulval melanoma which has now tracked up my vagina and I have a couple of tumours which I'll be having radiotherapy for in a couple of weeks along side my 3 weekly immunotherapy. My oncologist has warned me I'm likely to have a number of side effects, blistering etc and also mentioned something about applying a wax layer for the radiation sessions but I zoned out a little at this point with all the information to take in.
Best case I'll have 5 sessions every other day, worst case 5 days a week for 4 weeks depending what my next set of scans show, which always makes me nervous!
Hi Louise1990
I had 32 sessions of pelvic radiotherapy for my cervical cancer where my tumour was growing into the vaginal wall, so not quite the same scenario, but a lot of the potential side effects are similar when you have radiotherapy in that area.
I’ve not heard of radiotherapy being every other day-normally it’s daily on weekdays with none at the weekend. I didn’t have any blistering, nor did I need to apply anything before treatment so I don’t have experience of that. The treatment did however affect my bladder and bowels and this started 3 weeks into treatment with urgency to go and bad cystitis. I was given things to help with both, and things went back to normal soon after treatment ended.
You need to be advised of all the possible side effects so that you can give informed consent, but not everyone suffers any or all of them, so you may be one of the lucky ones! Just make sure you tell your treating team of anything that happens and they will be keen to help you. Treatment is very short each day, but there can be quite a bit of waiting around if the department is busy.
I hope it goes smoothly for you!
Sarah xx
Thanks for sharing SarahH21 it's good to know what to prepare for 
