Radiotherapy so far so good.

Yesterday I reported one nurse said Jan's breast was pink, suggesting the normal bad skin reaction to radiotherapy. At yesterday's appointment another nurse could not believe how little reaction there had been to 15 days of radiotherapy. Jan is getting the UK hypofractionation treatment of fewer bigger doses which would give even more reaction after 15 days...

So apart from the fatigue we need to give thanks to one or more of:

• an answer to prayer
• chance statistics, just under 1 in 6 folk do as well as Jan anyway
• use of Cavilon, a spray on plastic film as a skin protection
• use of curcumin as a radioprotection agent - there are 4600 Google hits on curcumin and radioprotection
• use of garlic as a radioprotection agent - this has 13,700 Google hits
• green tea- this has 11,700 Google hits as a radioprotectant
  
• other dietary effects of which we are so far unaware...

So in a trial of just one patient to date (Jan) these tricks seem to help. These tricks are the result of hours of determined book reading and research on Google.. In contrast I looked at the NHS best practice manual that makes no mention of any of these ideas.

The danger is that I am mislead by research in labs that is not replicated by Jan eating tumeric / curcumin. But these Indian ideas have been known to heal for thousands of years. Why is diet research so often based in India and China? Is it their economic necessity to break free from the profits of big pharma? The research reviewed by the national Cancer Institute of America on tea seems pretty conclusive to me, and even gives benefit from ordinary tea, but no pharma companies profit from tea!

One "colleague" undergoing radiotherapy has already developed cellulitis, a complication in around 5% of the patients. The link is 18+ only, it has ghastly photos! So it is still early days to say how well Jan will do...we keep praying.