I would strongly encourage you to seek out the most qualified dentist with experience in H&N cancer, even if it involves travel. My husband started having dental issues a few yrs post-tx., a few cavities, two root canals, leading up to one extraction in 2013.

We ended up traveling 3 hours to consult with an oral surgeon working on a H&N cancer team at a large NYC hospital. What a difference that made! The level of expertise in comparison to even our good and very concerned local oral surgeon was tremendous. Due to my insistence, my husband agreed to go for only an initial consult. He did not want another MD, more complicated appts., more tests, etc. Well....it only took about 10 minutes to realize that this was the place for us. Instead of thinking that traveling 3 hours one way was too difficulty, we were thankful that we had this option. They deal with dental complications related to cancer daily. A plan was made - by the way, not an aggressive plan. We could email the surgeon, phone his Nurse Practitioner, once they even put his resident on the phone to answer a question.

Two years later my husband did undergo a complicated debridement procedure. Again, the care and follow-up was excellent. It has resulted in a quiet year. We know there is no cure for ORN, but in the meantime he has had a year with no jaw pain and has been discharged.

I have started this message over several times getting bogged down in details which do not apply to you. Ask away if you have questions or PM me. The point I want to make is that it is worth the travel headache to get to the right dentist. It is very frustrating because there is no set protocol for these dental complications, but with a confident team that presented a plan, we knew we were doing everything possible and could stop second guessing ourselves.