Hi everyone. I thought that it might be useful to share my latest experience with DD with followers on this website. Two years ago I had DD progressing in both hands and was successful in finding a radiologist in Iowa to do RT for the first time in Iowa for DD. It stopped the disease cold until earlier this year I felt that feeling and looked at my right hand to discover a new nodule in the radiated field. My earlier treatment had been the typical protocol with 5X3gy followed up several weeks later by another round. This new nodule grew quickly into a growing chord and I went to see a hand ortho and my radiologist. He was unwilling to treat me again because of the amount of radiation exposure and felt it was too dangerous. There is little information available as to what to do about failure in the radiation field. He told me if I could come up with a plan to retreat safely he would look at it. I did a lot of research, reached out to this site and found that "salvage" radiation was being done in some instances when the disease came back. The protocol that I found was just 5X3gy and not following up with another set of treatments later. I send all the documentation I could find to my doctor and he agreed to retreat. Last week I finished my five days of radiation treatments and am hoping that I stopped DD again. So far no side effects from the radiation. He said it could be some time before I might see effects but I am fairly confident that I will be fine on that front. I am not worried about cancer, just the tissue on my hand and of course stopping the DD again.
I just thought that people that have RT and have new disease in the radiation field might benefit from my story. Feel free to ask any question if you have any!
Lauri