Radiation wounds can be the unfortunate side effect of life-saving cancer treatments. At Rocky Mountain Wound Care Specialists, renowned certified physician wound care specialist Amy Pate, MD, MPH, CWSP, offers personalized treatment for radiation wounds in the comfortable Loveland, Colorado, office. This allows you to skip the costly and impersonal hospital wound care centers while getting the physician-led care you need to heal. Book your appointment online or call the office for help now.
Radiation wounds are chronic wounds that may occur following radiation exposure. Radiation can have damaging effects on the skin and its underlying structures if wounds aren’t treated promptly. Fortunately, radiation wounds are treatable using advanced wound therapy at Rocky Mountain Wound Care Specialists.
The most common cause of radiation wounds is the use of therapeutic ionizing radiation, a treatment that about 7 million people undergo annually worldwide. About half of all people who have cancer undergo radiation at some point.
While radiation can effectively destroy malignant (cancerous) cells, it can also negatively affect your blood flow and damage tissue and bone, so radiation wounds are sometimes a side-effect of necessary and life-saving cancer therapies.
Less commonly, radiation wounds may stem from environmental exposure, such as nuclear power plant accidents.
Radiation burns (the first sign of radiation exposure) can cause symptoms such as:
Unfortunately, your skin may peel very quickly, and your body might not be able to grow new skin quickly enough. This can lead to slow-healing or nonhealing wounds. Radiation wounds sharply increase your risk of infection, and a wound could worsen dramatically without treatment.
At Rocky Mountain Wound Care Specialists, Dr. Pate treats radiation wounds after carefully evaluating your personal needs, medical condition, and history. Her years of experience in general surgery, critical surgical care, preventive medicine, trauma, and wound care ensure that you get the most customized treatment.
Dr. Pate sees every patient herself, while at hospital-based wound care centers, you’ll rarely get physician-led wound care. Some of the many approaches to radiation wound healing include:
All treatments happen on-site, so you won’t incur the high facility fees of a hospital-based wound care center.
Wound treatments are as comfortable, streamlined, and easy as possible at Rocky Mountain Wound Care Specialists, so don’t wait any longer to get help for your radiation burns and wounds. Call the office or use the online appointment maker to get help today.