Joint pain after radiation therapy

[j4giz]

I had a small tubular cancer (1mm) removed in a surgical biopsy.  I stopped using an HRT patch (on HRT for 6 years) immediately after being diagnosed and had 33 radiation treatments.  At about the 2/3 mark of radiation treatments, my joints began to be sore.  At the end of radiation, I sprained my knee walking across the street.  I have two autoimmune diseases which could contribute to joint pain and/or connective tissue issues--Primary Biliary Cirrhosis and Sjogren's Syndrome.  It has been two weeks since my knee injury and I am still unable to walk without pain.  Muscles in both legs ache and my shoulders, elbows, and fingers are sore upon waking in the morning.  Are the joint pains and injury more likely to be a result of the stress of radiation therapy or could they be from stopping HRT cold turkey?  I have never had such pain before.

[CCF-RN,MSN-rf]

Dear j4giz:  Joint pain has been reported as a symptom of menopause, so it is possible that stopping the HRT could be contributing to this.  However, this may or may not be the situation for you.  You may want to discuss with both your oncologist and your rheumatologist to see if they can make some recommendations to help better manage the discomfort.

[j4giz]

Thanks for your help.  I have already discussed this with my medical oncologist and he wasn't much help.  I will see the radiation oncologist this week so I'll ask him again, although I was complaining during radiation and he didn't offer any suggestions.  I have an appointment to see my rheumatologist in two weeks so I guess I'll wait until then to see what he thinks.