Hi All

Can anyone help me with this, my brother has gotten a date for the removal of the cancer on his tongue, 4th November, grrrrr which seems a long way off to me 15 days from seeing surgeon to op!! and he had to kick up a stink to get that date, they was going to send him away with no date **growls** this growth has doubled in size in 3 weeks already.

Anyways, last Friday they injected in his neck and took something out does anyone know what this was for??? Is it to do with lymph nodes?? the docs said from scans said it didn't look too bad, how they gauge """not too bad""" i don't know. cos they said oribinally from the """scans""" all they could see was the growth. it really dosen't glean much confidence.

He is in much pain not only does he keep knocking the growth on his teeth, but his gums are causing him agony. he says his mouth feels like its on fire especially his gums, he has all lumps appearing on the inside of his lower lip too, they are so so sore, he let me look at them today and where his teeth go into his gums the top of them (teeth) is turned black, the hospital has made no provision for him to have any treatment on his teeth/gums and I am sure I read that this was an important step??

His growth is on the underside of his tongue, now have also noticed that on the same side but on the top looks like its turning yellow, its like a big yellow stain down that side of his tongue..

Should he be receiving some kind of dental care before this op, and should this op be being left this long to be done?? he can hardly talk, his appetite is good but he is struggling to eat because of the pain in his mouth

Dont want to sound like a whiner but I feel like hospital just don't care and are missing stuff

Any help/advice appreciated.

Hope everyone is having a peaceful weekend.

Michelle

Hello Michelle

The biopsy on the lymph nodes in the neck was to help decide on the type and extent of treatment (surgery, radiotherapy, etc).

If your bother is in pain, he needs to see his specialist and ask about what can be done in the meantime to get comfortable. If the teeth are biting into the tongue and might get removed later anyway, they could possibly do this earlier or else prescribe something to make the discomfort less ( e.g. analgesics or something like Gelclair. Aloclair is similar but less concentrated and you might get it from a chemist without prescription.) Hope that helps your brother.

Best wishes
Vinod :coffee:

Hi Dr Vinod,

Thank you for the reply and your help and advise. We are going to try and get him some of this gelclair, from what I can gather, the hospital originally gave him some little triangle shaped pills but when he ran out of those the GP prescibed, co-codamol which I dont think is the most helpful painkillers. Will try on the Gelclair route..

Thanks

Michelle

Hi again,

Had a chat to my brothers GP on phone yesterday about getting him some better pain killers, I mentioned the little triangle shape ones and he seemed to know what they were and wrote him a prescription. I also mentioned the """gelclair""" you told me about, he went off and looked it all up on his computer, he said he hadn't heard of this before and he gave a prescriptin for that also, so i am hoping not only does this help my bro with the pain, but also the doc will bear it in mind for anyone else suffering with these kind of problems.

Thank you so much for caring and giving of your time to us all.

Huggs

Michelle

oh.... ps. is he allowed to use this gelclair in conjunction with his pain killers??

Yes, they work differently.

Don't underestimate the speed with which a product like Solpadol works.

I discovered via my gp that cocodamol bought in the chemist has a much lower dosage of codeine in it than presciption solpadol. Solpadol also can act quickly because being dissolved in water it gets into the system fast. I can start getting pain relief from my stabbing shoulder pains caused by radiotherapy after damage, within 5-10 minutes. To get even more relief I also take Ibuprofen with it or between the solpadol dose. But try hard not to have a full day's dosage of the solpadol. Can affect the bowel and cause constipation and of course can cause liver damage if over the 8 tablets a day.

Hi Pauline

Thanks for the reply and advise. I will suggest the solpadol if these little triangle ones dont work, he is only allowed 2 of these a day so they must be pretty strong, and hopefully the chemist will have the gelclair in today and he can start on that as well.

Only a week to go now till they take him in and do operation, the sad part is I think he thinks he will have this done and all will be fine and dandy, when i know from what I have read on this site this is just the beginning.

Right now is hard because he refuses to talk about things, and so we try and do things best we can and help where we can but sometimes that just makes him get cross with us, its very difficult feeling your way around blindly, never knowing for sure """exactly""" what is happening and been said by hospital.

I wished i could wave a magic wand for him but I cant, so i just continue to walk on egg shells and try to do what I can in a way that will hopefully not make him angry at me.

I am praying to god these tablets work and help him with his pain, I feel so helpless, so numb, like this is all some dream and i wil lwake up and he be fine, if only.. sighs..

Take care

Huggs

Michelle

Something that has worked for me as stupid as it may sound is that I brush my teeth with toothpaste and a very small bead of Numbsit, you know the stuff they sell to use on babies who are getting their teeth. This works extremely well for me.

I think someone somewhere should make a commercial product for us that incorporates a mild toothpaste with a numbing agent mixed in for this.

Used Gelclair, in my opinion, it was not nearly as effective, although it did help a little.

Hi, I use Biotene toothpaste and Mouthwash it really helps.
Also lots of ice cream

Paul