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Hello, I was wondering if you could share your experience with the radiation one pneumonitis. I had that back in March of 2023 and had to be admitted to the hospital couple times because of that. Every time it would flare up when I get to the lower dose of prednisone. Since my last diagnosis in Sept of 2023, my pulmonologist decided to do longer tapering with antibiotics. I’m at the point where I’m tapering down by 1mg every month and I’m on 4 now. He plans to keep me longer on the antibiotics even after I’m done with prednisone.
Replies to "Hello, I was wondering if you could share your experience with the radiation one pneumonitis. I..."
I provided my experience and would have a question for you. Pneumonitis is a serious complication. I see from your profile that you have breast cancer. I have read that radiation to the chest will cause pneumonitis. Have they mentioned any limit in treatment options because of the radiation-induced pneumonitis?
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Hi zeerj, happy to share my experience. About 6-7 weeks after three sittings of SBRT I had really increased breathing issue. I called in and they first prescribed antibiotics for 10 days which did nothing. Then they put me on Prednizone 40mg tapering every 2 weeks (40mg, 30mg, 20mg, 10mg). That helped immediately and I quite 59 days later. They also prescribed Bactrim to take with the Prednisone. Since I ended the Prednisone I have had a slowly increasing shortness of breath. Besides the multifocal lung cancer, I also have pulmonary fibrosis /interstitial disease. That has been reported as stable on my many CT scans. My last pulmonary function test showed a severe drop in diffusing capacity(DLCO). Not clear if this is due to fibrosis caused by SBRT or by the other fibrosis present in my lungs. I will repeat the PFT and if it is still down, I will need to start anti-fibrotic medication.