Radiated on purpose as an infant in the 1950's, cancer developed years later

kodsgy said:

I am 57 and was irradiated at

I am 57 and was irradiated at a few months old for enlarged thymus after my parents brought me in for sinus symptoms (was probably only a milk allergy). I do not and have never had cancer, but I’m interested in ways the radiation could have negatively affected my life. I just joined here after finding this thread and don’t know if it exists somewhere in this forum, but would like to find a survivors support group for child thymus irradiation. Determining which health problems, short of cancer, could be related to the irradiation treatments would be valuable. I could list my health issues here and ask if anyone else has had anything similar, but I’m not sure it would be on topic.

 

kodsgy

Hope you see this message.  See my reply to Deech below for a list of most of my issues.  Actually there are more and am interested in hearing about yours.

Please reply to this post.

My mother told me when I was about 28 years old that I was one of ythe babies which had this type of raidation therapy for an enlarge Thumus.  I never knew it before that moment.  I know that I am lucky without any cancer so far.  I do ask my doctor for exam on my throat area on an annual basis to help me.  I do get sore throats alot.  The sore throats feel like more like lumps because it bothers me alot when I try to sleep at night.

Back in 1946 I was born with a birthmark and I'm not sure how soon it was, but had radiation treatment

between the brows. I've had quite a few health problems through the years, but only one basal cell carcinoma at age 30.  

I've struggled with health disorders, but the worst has been anxiety and depression. I was also diagnosed with a problem

with concentration and memory, but I was able to finish college.   I'd like to talk with others who may have had the 

same problem. Thanks.

I was born in 1952 with a large stawberry mark over my head and forehead.  Rather than treatment by xrays in a hospital, my mother took me to a private pediatrician who told her he could remove the birthmark painlessly.  According to my father he did this by taping pieces of gray radium metal over the birthmark first thing in the morning for s ix days, covering it with a stocking cap and sending my mother out to window shop with me held to her breast for the rest of the day.  At closing time around 5 PM she returned and he took off the radium until the next time.  

This was in the old Jenkins Arcade in Pittsburgh, and who knows how many people my mother unwittingly exposed to high dose gamma radiation during those days of window shopping.  The birthmark disappeared.  By the time I was twelve so had my hair in the irradiated area.  This deformity had a lifelong negative consequence on my life in social terms, in spades!  What do you think happens to a girl who grows up  bald?  I also didn't grow;  I only made it to barely 5 feet tall.  Later when I learned enough to research the effects of gamma radiation exposure I found that it interferes with torso growth.  My legs are long for my height but I have no distance between hips and ribs.  

My mother found a lump in her breast at age 42; she died of breast cancer 6 years later.  We have no history of breast cancer in the family, including post-menopausal.    I enrolled in a breast cancer study in my late thirties, and received state-of-the-art mammography as part of the study.  Because of this, when I developed breast cancer at 39 it was found at a very early stage and successfully treated with bilateral mastectomy.  Which is a good thing because it was right down against my chest wall, and if I had not found it until I could feel it, it would have been too late.  

At age 60 I was diagnosed with ovarian tumors of an unusual type.  Although they were large, less than 2% of the tumor was cancerous, and so I am still alive at 65.  I don't know when the next problem will occur as I age.  My heart goes out to all of you who have had your health damaged by radiation.  The one thing I learned during all of this is that doctors don't pay attention unless you keep telling them loudly and repeatedly about things that cause problems.  For both your own sake and that of the younger people, keep telling your doctors about the LONGTERM effects of radiation.   Incidentally, my father told me that the pediatrician with the radiium metal kept it in a little wooden box under his desk, that did not look big or heavy enough to be lead-shielded, and that the pediatrician died in his forties of some kind of uncommon genital cancer.  So the doctors need to be aware of the longterm affects of radiation for their own sakes as well as ours.

Too many doctors never think ahead to the effects in twenty, thirty, forty, or more years, of that CAT scan they want to do on your kid.  Or the effects in five, ten or twenty years to the women with cervical problems that they treat by putting radium pellets in the vagina.  As a retired RN, I've seen how high the incidence of bladder cancer is in these women.  Also, the lifelong difficulties some have with shrinking and hardening of the vaginal and rectal tissues.  Patients need to keep taliking until their doctors hear them, and then maybe we can prevent some of these problems for our children. 

Be an active participant in your medical care.  Ask questions.  Speak up and be heard!

I had ear problems. I remember teachers were always sending me home because my glands were always swollen. They thought I had mumps. I did have them, but not that often. Anyway, for many years I have blocked out most of what happened back then. It actually all came crashing in a few years ago. I started remembering some of things I went thru. One of which was being held down by my parents so that the doctor could inject something into my ears. I remember my father joking that the smoke was coming out the other ear. It didn't, though; it came out thru my nose. I blocked it out for many years because I absolutely HATED having this done. I also remember having to lay completely still while I had, what I call x-rays, but it was radiation treatments. When I was 24, I had my second child and I developed numerous moles on my neck, on right side. The doctor at the time just snipped them off like it was nothing to be concerned about (this was in 1973).

Now, fast forward many years later (I am 68 now), I had to have my cataracts removed in my 40's; I found out I have a hypothroid; always had hearing problems (now I have hearing aids, normal at my age, yes, but still....). I had a really bad cold back in May of this year. It is now July and I still have cough, and now my glands are swollen, mostly on my right side. I finally went to see my regular GP, mainly because I couldn't shake the cough, and she could not find anything clogged up. She prescribed an antibiotic and cough medicine and neither has made a difference. I will complete the pills. If no change, of course I will go back.

I have not been diagnosed with any cancers, they don't run in our family (I know that is no guarantee). But as always, the stuff I had done back then always comes to the surface now, especially as I get older. When I was tested for my hearing aids, the doctors were dumbfounded when they looked inside my ears. It really does look like a bomb went off in there.

The thing that I have found frustrating is that I have yet to find a doctor that doesn't look at me like I am crazy when I tell them what happened back then. They don'know anything about it. I actually live in Houston, Texas, home of the world famous medical/cancer center. I just want to find someone to take all this seriously. Something ain't right!

Thank you for letting me vent on this.

Besides breast cancer, severe Graves disease (needed immediate RAI to destroy thyroid), has anyone gotten severe scoliosis and/or osteoporosis?  I was told the radiation could affect the bones as well .  I also have precancerous cysts on my pancrease but beause of so many other health concerns i can not have Whipple surgery. Someone I know  who was radiated as a small child had 6 miscarriages, pituatary cancer, now brain tumor and severe osteoporis so just wondering....  There are so many of us with so manhy health conditions.

I just discovered this forum. I was radiated as an infant for an "enlarged" thymus as a newborn in 1953 in Morristown, N.J. I was diagnosed with malignant thyroid cancer and had a thyroidectomy in 1978. I'm 66 years old now and thought I was long "out of the woods" as far as problems related to that early radiation, but I'm learning that people, with stories similar to mine, are being diagnosed in their later years with incidences of cancer in peripheral areas of the neck, head and chest. I'm now wondering if a diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma on the center of my upper chest could be related to the radiation treatment I received as a baby. I've joined this forum to share my story and to hear from anyone else who may have a similar one to tell. Thanks!

Is it reasonable to poll people, who had their thymus glands radiated as infants and were later diagnosed with thyroid cancer, to see what incidences of cancer have shown up in more recent years? I'm 66 and have just begun to learn that other cancers have appeared in various parts of the head/neck area in people with stories similar to mine. My thymus was radiated in 1953 (as a newborn) and I was diagnosed with malignant thyroid cancer in 1978. I had a thyroidectomy and was just diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma on my upper chest. Wondering if it might be related to my misguided radiation treatment 65 years ago.

Like many, it seems, I was born with two strawberry birthmarks on my head and one above my eye.  I was treated multiple times in all areas with radium when I was six months old.  I have a depressed area on my skull.  In 1997, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when a nodule was found.  The nodule was removed with the surrounding tissue, which was positive for medullary, papillary, and follicular cancer.  Ten days later, the rest of the thyroid was removed.  I generally get blank stares when I tell any new physician of this history as a baby.  What other cancers or conditions should I be on the lookout for?

wrwoolley1 said:

Thymus irradiated in 1953; thyroid cancer diagnosed in 1978

I misguidedly (putting it nicely) received radiation treatment for an "enlarged" thymus gland as an infant in 1953. I was diagnosed with malignant thyroid cancer in 1978 and thought I was out of the proverbial woods forever. Now I'm seeing evidence that cancer is appearing in various areas of the head, neck and upper chest of people with stories similar to mine.  I'm 66 years old now and was recently diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma on my upper chest and am wondering if it could berelated to my radiation treatment as an infant. I'm thrilled to have found this forum and will be checking in frequently. In the meantime, I'll check your blog link and would like to find out if you've completed a book in regard to infant radiation for enlanrged supposedly thymus glands. Thanks very much.

I was born in 1953 also - with a relatively small hole in between the ventricles of my heart, and on top of that they decided my thymus gland was "too large" so it was irradiated. Unlike you, thankfully I was not diagnosed with any thyroid cancer but in 2005 I developed a squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. Thankfully it was very early and after a thorough removal of the spot at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in NYC, it was completely removed and did not need further treatment. (Helps to be a hypochondriac and run to the doctor immediately with any abnormality). While doing scans of the thyroid as a follow-up to my original cancer diagnosis, they found I had two nodules on the left side of my thyroid. I also had had a strange temporary, painful swelling of the thyroid about ten years earlier that went away with the use of anti-inflammatories. I had low thyroid numbers right after that but they normalized way before the nodules were discovered. I had two sets of needle biopsies and neither showed cancer in the thyroid but i continue to be monitored for any change in TSH, T4 and all that. Luckily, so far, all is normal. But I have often wondered whether the tongue cancer was a result of the irradiation. I had smoked in the distant past but had been tobacco free for 30 years when the tongue cancer developed. I also drank a good amount of alcohol, mostly wine with meals, which could have been another risk factor. I gave up drinking for 4 years after that and then went back to it and never got another cancer (knock wood). I'm 68 now and have quit drinking again just to be careful. But I am always wondering whether I'll get something worse as a result of that irradiation as a baby. So far so good on the breast cancer risk, which is another thing we have to worry about. Had a scare about 20 years ago and had a breast biopsy but it was only dense tissue, not cancer. Amazing how doctors in that day were so eager to use radiation on helpless babies. I mean seriously, whose idea was that?!