Alkaline Water in Reducing Skin Toxicity in Women With Breast Cancer Undergoing Radiation Therapy

Inclusion Criteria: * Patients must have histologically or cytologically confirmed stage 0-IV breast cancer and have a treatment plan consisting of 62Gy (31 fractions) of total breast radiation therapy to be eligible; patients are eligible if they have received any number of prior chemotherapies; patients having received chemotherapy prior to radiation will be stratified among randomization groups during the second phase of this study * Life expectancy of greater than 3 months * Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status =\< 2 (Karnofsky \>= 60%) * Ability to understand and the willingness to sign a written informed consent document Exclusion Criteria: * Patients receiving any investigational chemotherapeutic agents during planned radiation or any prior breast or chest wall radiation treatments are excluded * Patients receiving concurrent chemotherapy are excluded because of an increased relative risk of skin toxicity; patients taking daily proton-pump inhibitor or H2-blocker antacid medications are excluded because of predicted interference of alkaline water consumption and stomach pH; herceptin for the purposes of this clinical trial would be considered a chemotherapy, and as such, patients receiving herceptin chemotherapy during radiation would not be eligible for participation in this protocol * Patients with a history of any prior malignancy except non-melanoma skin cancer or carcinoma in-situ of the cervix not in remission for twelve months are excluded; patients with known brain metastases are excluded from this clinical trial because of their overall poor prognosis * Pregnancy excludes female patients from this study because radiation is potentially teratogenic and abortifacient; screening beta-hcg levels and clinically-indicated diagnostic tests will be used to determine eligibility