u/Homeless_Pig1

My mom has stage 4 metastatic breast cancer that has spread to her lungs, bones, and skin. She’s been dealing with some skin changes on her chest and sternum that I wanted to ask about because I can’t find anything online that looks quite like what she has.
The areas look like open wounds or scabs that never fully heal. They’ll scab over, the scab falls off, and then it scabs again in a cycle. The skin around the area also feels tight and she experiences itching, tingling, numbness, and shooting pain in the surrounding area especially her neck, and it gets significantly worse when she stands up.
Her oncologist already knows about it and is referring her to a radiologist for palliative low dose radiation to those areas. I’ve since learned this is likely cutaneous breast cancer metastasis meaning her breast cancer has spread to and through her skin rather than a separate skin cancer.
I’m looking for anyone who has experience with this either personally or as a caregiver. Specifically:
• Did palliative radiation help with the itching, tightness, and pain?
• How quickly did you see relief after radiation?
• Is there anything that helped with comfort while waiting for radiation?
• Did anything help with the neuropathic itching specifically?
• Any wound care products that made a real difference?
She’s also experiencing anticipatory sleep anxiety because the discomfort makes nights really long and difficult. Any advice on managing that in a cancer patient would also be appreciated.