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No one is excited to hear they have to have radiation therapy. No one. Ever.

Yes, it’s a lifesaving treatment (kind of a big deal), and hopefully your radiation team is as friendly and supportive as mine, which makes it all a bit easier. After seeing them five days a week for over five weeks, I rather missed them when my treatments were over.

That linear accelerator, though?… That was a love-hate relationship.

Having a moment with my linear accelerator. This machine is truly fascinating! Photo courtesy of my radiation techs.

Clothing to Have on Hand

Keeping your skin hydrated is key to surviving radiation treatment and delaying radiation burn. But no matter what sort of ointments or oils you use, your shirts and bras are basically guaranteed to get a bit janky from all the moisturizers.

Shirts

As such, I highly recommend having on-hand some tee shirts that you don’t mind throwing away once treatment is done. I bought a pack of black Hanes shirts for men before treatment started and practically lived in those four shirts for five weeks. Black shirts work best to mask the oily residue from the moisturizers. I had a couple other shirts I slept in, one lavender and one pink, and both were stained a slightly darker hue over my left breast from all the coconut oil they endured. Even after a few washes, they’ve never fully recovered.

Bras

Your bras are going to face similar abuse. That is, the first couple weeks when you’re actually able to stand wearing a bra. At some point bras just won’t be comfortable anymore (are they ever really??) due to the burns and friction against your skin. Like the shirts, I recommend a couple inexpensive sports bras that you don’t mind potentially ruining due to the oil.

One key factor for the shirts and bras is to make sure they’re loose. This is why I bought men’s shirts instead of women’s. And those sports bras certainly wouldn’t win any awards at wrangling the girls and holding them in place while walking, much less doing sports. But friction and tight clothing are a nemesis after the first couple weeks of radiation.

In fact, my girls (well, girl) hate being free-range and bopping all around – they prefer the hug of a bra to provide some stability. But after about the third week I stopped wearing a bra altogether because it was just too darn uncomfortable. If I was going out in public, I wore a hoodie over my black shirt to hide the fact that Righty was hangin’ loose.

Another option is to order a Radiant Wrap, a loose-fitting wrap specifically made for radiation treatment. You can read my honest review of the Radiant Wrap here, as well as my review of the Radiant Robe.

Keep Your Skin Moisturized!!

In case you haven’t realized it yet, you’re going to be using a lot of moisturizers!! It’s also key to drink plenty of water during treatment so you keep the skin moisturized from the inside out!

So here’s the ugly truth: odds are your skin is going to burn. (According to this study those odds are 95%.) Depending on your skin type, it may take four weeks or it may only take one week, but it will eventually burn. (Technically the burn is called radiation dermatitis.)

There are a number of options you can use for treating the skin. Two of the most common include Aquaphor and calendula oil or cream. (Note: do NOT use calendula if you are pregnant or trying to get pregnant!)

Personally, I did a combination. I started off with a natural regimen of calendula oil, aloe, and lavender essential oil mixed with coconut oil as found on this website. (All the products I used are listed on my Resources page.) Yeah, it’s a whole lot of layers, and it took me about a half-hour (or more) to apply it all as I gave time for each layer to soak in a bit before I applied the next. As the website suggests, I started this protocol about a week or so before beginning treatment, and I continued with it twice a day – morning and evening – throughout treatment.

In the afternoons, I applied Aquaphor. Many patients swear by the healing power of Aquaphor on radiation burns. I definitely appreciated the simplicity of it – one ready-to-go layer as opposed to the time-consuming regimen of oils previously mentioned. But Aquaphor is also a much thicker ointment than aloe and the oils, so it could be pretty uncomfortable to spread around the radiated area once the burn started. Hence why I did the aloe and oils twice a day and Aquaphor once as opposed to the other way around.

Update 9/2/2022:

My Mom was also unfortunately diagnosed with breast cancer this year, though thankfully she could get by with a lumpectomy and radiation. I knew she wouldn’t have the time to apply all the oils and layers like I did during her radiation treatment. A friend of mine had used My Girl Skin Care during her radiation and loved it. I ended up ordering a couple tubes for my mom, and her skin also did really well with this product. You could use this cream in addition to the products listed above, or on its own, whichever works best for you.

Radiation burns are no joke. I was nearly done with treatment when this photo was taken. Photo by Beth DeLong.

Caveat About Using Oils

If you’ve read my blog post A Constellation of Scars, then you know I had some difficulties with the stickers outlining my radiated area. If I had it to do over, I’d get the tattoos immediately at the start of radiation. While I’d still have some stickers, it would have cut back on the number, making it easier to apply my oils and ointments.

The point is, those darn stickers move. The coconut/lavender oil mixture was my favorite part as it felt soothing to my irritated skin and helped moisturize the area. But I also applied that stuff liberally, and oil and stickers aren’t a good combo.

So if you’re not opposed to a few tattoo dots, I’d highly recommend getting the tattoos early and avoiding the extra stickers so you don’t feel as restricted about your use of moisturizers.

For Serious Burns

Some people will experience pretty severe burns from radiation, which can include open wounds. Fortunately, I was not one of those people; but that also means I can’t speak from personal experience about the products recommended to me should severe burns occur. If, however, your skin does not take to radiation as favorably, here are a couple products you could ask your radiation oncologist about.

Domeboro – My doctor recommended this even with my moderate burns. All sorts of people suggested this product to me, including my friend’s mom who’s a nurse. It has quite a reputation for being soothing to burned skin! Even though my radiation oncologist recommended it for me, I couldn’t use it because – surprise! – I’m allergic to it. That said, don’t use Domeboro if you’re allergic to sulfa.

Medihoney – One of my friends had some rather serious burning, bad enough to send her to the burn unit at her hospital. The nurses there recommended Medihoney, which she said helped tremendously! She was going through all this around the time I began my radiation treatment, so I had this link on standby in my Amazon account…just in case.

After Treatment…

Caring For Your Skin

When I finished treatment, a friend very graciously gifted me a tube of Balm for All and a bottle of Nourishing Rosewater Mist, both from Beauty Counter, which she had read were helpful for radiation patients.

I loved the balm! It has a texture that’s in between the oils and Aquaphor – more solid than the coconut oil but not as difficult to spread as the Aquaphor. I had a harder time telling a difference with the rosewater mist. It felt refreshing and I liked it, but I’m not sure how great a role it played on its own, or if it was more of a cumulative effect with the other products.

Cost Breakdown

I realize that both of these products are a bit pricey, but they last for a while. If you’re like me, you want to see some numbers to help justify the cost, so I went ahead and did some number crunching for y’all. The mist and balm both lasted me more than two months. Sometimes I applied them once a day, sometimes twice.

I’m pretty sure I got at least 75 uses out of the balm. Divide the $22 price tag by 75 uses, and that’s 29 cents per use. Even if you apply more per use and only get 60 uses, that’s still only 36 cents per use. I went through the rosewater spray faster, but I’d still say I got 60 applications out of it. That would equate to 60 cents per use. For as good as my skin feels, and for the number of applications I got out of those products, I’d say they’re definitely worth their price tags!

Clothing Considerations

Unfortunately, your skin doesn’t stop being high maintenance once it’s healed from the burns. That radiated skin will actually be pretty sensitive to the sun’s UV rays for a number of years. (Yay…)

If you’re doing treatment in the summer or you live somewhere with a strong sun, I highly recommend having a couple UPF shirts on-hand. If you don’t already have some, you could check at REI, Eddie Bauer, maybe even your local sporting goods stores. They don’t have to be fancy brands, just make sure they have UPF properties, which is usually advertised on a special tag.

One of my Pacific Contour tees from Athleta. It’s been tested in the harsh summer sun of Texas and still protected my radiated skin. Photo by Beth DeLong.

Final Notes

While the Aquaphor and calendula helped heal my skin, and the aloe and coconut oil moisturized it, the balm helped soften my skin. Considering a lot of reading I did on radiation treatment prior to this sounded like I would have seriously leathery skin after treatment, I was surprised at how soft my skin felt. It almost feels like normal, untreated skin!! And this isn’t just me saying that – my doctor actually commented how well my skin has recovered from radiation, how soft it feels, and that the pores are almost regular pore size. (Many women say their skin pores are larger after radiation.)

I know each person responds to radiation differently. Despite a few minor complications, I fared pretty darn well, and I think that’s in part due to all the products and moisturizers I used.

Do you have any other suggestions or recommendations for surviving radiation treatment? Feel free to leave a comment below!

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