7.5 weeks after radiotherapy still having trouble in swallowing even water, pain in the ears is excrutiating every time i swallow. Doctors have said this is referred pain.
Does anybody know if there is anything you may be given to speed up the healing process after radiotherpy?

hi
congratulations on finishing your radiotherapy,i can easily remember the soreness after.i don't have any wise words for you my friend except to say it does get better with time but it's so slow, use saliva replacement gels if you need them.rinse your mouth out with either salt water or bicarbonate of soda and water.one day you will look back and see just how far you have come.it is 19 months since i finished my treatment and my mouth and throat will not tolerate anything spicy or fizzy due to the fact it's still a little sore.it's frustrating but you will get there in the end.all the best shirl xxx

Hi,
I am 3 months post treatment (35 RT sessions for throat cancer). I had headaches and earaches which were advised to be referred pain but they have mainly disappeared now. I have always managed to swallow liquids OK so I would get that checked out. I have thrush at the moment which is causing me to have a sore throat though. Not sure there is anything to speed up the healing process and everyone is different.

Good Luck

Ken

hi kenny
i kept getting bouts of thrush for months and my g.p said it was in my throat too.it is painful isn't it.it took me a while to be able to drink water due to the fact i had almost lost the swallowing reflex,that was something i never thought could happen.good luck with clearing up the thrush.all the best shirl xxx

Thanks for you help most appreciated. Just discovered that gargling with boiled water (warm) and tea tree oil is helping.

Hi dnemutd, as others have advised this recovery is unfortunately slower than any of us want but we don't have much choice I apppreciate. However please rest assured that as time progresses so does the recovery. Don't forget how severe these treatments are, they kill so much tissue that all this has to reappear before having a chance to grow again, annd thats being given the right nutrients to grow. If you can see if you can drink ensures or something similar, instead of just trying to sip water. I found the water is literaly too watery to swallow if thats the right word, Something with a bit more viscosity might be worth a try.

And as Shirl and Kenny say, watch out for the thrush, the mouth type, this is a burden, but easily prevented by gargling mouthwash, regularly, or worse, cured by antibiotics such as fluconazole.

Stay strong and keep us posted.
Nigel

Hi, My name is Donna. I posted my story but wasn't paying attention and my story ended up in the technical help section -- don't ask me how I managed to do that -- brain dead, I guess Read my story if you're interested. (Dr J: I have moved it to the "introduce Yourself' forum )

Anyway, I've got some questions. I'm an eleven year tongue cancer survivor. Long story short, I was DX'ed with SSC of the tongue, had surgery, both free flap and radical neck. ENDURED both radiation and chemotherapy and somehow survived stage IV oral cancer (mets to lymph nodes). It took me a long time to fully recover but I did. I was able to find a part time job and things went fairly well for a long time. Oh, I suffer from a burning sensation in my oral cavity and I have almost no saliva and I lost over two thirds of my tongue, but still, I was doing OK until this past summer/fall. I got a bad case of thrush that I could not get rid of. Oh,my, god, it was the worst case ever. I think I only got thrush a few times the whole time I was going through treatment. So finally I get rid of the thrush but I notice that my mouth is feeling different. Really different. Slowly I realize that the tiny amount of saliva that I once had is slowly dimminishing to almost NO saliva at all, and to make matters worse I develop a bad burning sensation in my oral cavity that almost puts me over the ledge -- the burning sensation goes from my bottom lip all the way down my throat encompassing my whole oral cavity. I'm in bad shape and nothing I do seems to help. So I go to my internist, my ENT, and my pain clinic looking for some relief. Nobody seems to understand why this is happening to me nor do they have anything medication to really help me. They put me on lyrica --that doesn't help. They put me on Evoxx (sp?) to help get some saliva flow into my oral cavity and all that does is bring me saliva the consistency of ELMERS GLUE;thick and ropey saliva from days past when I was going through radiation, so that doesn't help either.

I swear, this is as uncomfortable as going through radiation and nothing seems to comfort my aching mouth. Biotene mouthwash helps, but only to clean out the gunk -- and even that burns. My Doctors think that my mouth is just getting worse due to my age (53 years young btw)and that most likely I won't see any improvement. So, I've had to quit my job. I can barely eat or swallow due to lack of any saliva and even talking is becoming a chore. My mouth is so dry and sore it is about all I can think about. Has this happened to anybody else out there in oral cancer land? What did you do?How do you cope? I'm going back to my pain clinic in January but I'm not expected any miracles since both my ENT and internist don't hold out much hope for my mouth improving.

Emotionally this has been the hardest thing to deal with since my diagnoses of cancer. I just can't seem to get any relief! HELP? Any ideas? I'm open to anything.

Thanks for for reading.....and for all the great ideas that I know will be coming my way shortly... I hope.

Donna

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dr Vinod K Joshi,

hi donna
nice to meet you.poor you i expect you are fed up with the burning sensation.i have no wise word except do speak to your doctor and ask for help or an investigation as to why your saliva has practicaly dried up after all this time.i have very little saliva and what there is is of a sticky nature its nasty and my mouth either tastes salty or sour and i get paranoid that i have bad breath although my husband constantly tells me i dont have bad breath and has promised to tell me if he notices at any time that i do.as for the saliva the only thing that helps me is sipping warm drinks like coffee or water.i hope you get some help love shirl xxx