My plastic surgeon recommended that I wait for six months after radiation for reconstruction. The radiation treatments accumulate tissue damage- like a really bad sunburn over and over. It will take time for the skin to recover from the radiation.

I can't stress enough the importance of conditioning your skin before and during radiation!! I used a cream called Miaderm- created by radiation oncologists for patients. It worked wonderfully. Avoid aloe vera gel and aquaphor. Both will actually increase the burn. If you can't find miaderm, contact me. I have a local source (San Jose, CA) and will get some to send you.

Best of luck!!

My plastic surgeon suggested a year after radiation to exchange expanders for implants. Just had the surgery in August and it all went very well. He took out a bunch of scar tissue on the radiated side but I am on my way to having a nice new set without any problems so far. Good luck....

I had immediate silicone implants during my masectomy. We didn't expect radiation, so that was the route we went. Had we known I would need radiation, we would of waited. I now run a 40% chance of losing the implant on the radiated side. It can actually take up to 18 months after ending radiation for implant issues to happen. So now I may not be looking over my shoulder daily for cancer, now I will be looking to see if I lose my implant! Radiation changes your skin an makes it tighten, which can impact the implant. My radiologist works specifically with reconstruction so we are hoping I won't have issues, but it's a high risk to take. I am very happy with my implants, but if I had to do it again, I would of waited till after radiation.

I am doing exchange next week. Just had BMX on 8/28/14. They are doing exchange before radiation starts. He said it is harder to do surgery on radiated skin and that if I did after radiation, I would be waiting at least 6 months before exchange. It is still possible to have complications on radiated breast even though I am doing implant first. It seems though, that you could go either way and people have had success both ways. Tissue expander or implant in your body during radiation, well, it's still an implant regardless. Good Luck.

I had the Same sequence with no problem. We allowed 9 months from completing radiation to exchanging the expander fir the implant. I had both sides done (one was optional) my cancer side was very tight and there were concerns we couldn't expand enough. But it all worked out