I am about 5 weeks post treatment. I had IMRT x 35 and Chemo (Cisplatin) x 3. One thing I haven't seen discussed much on the board is speech problems. My tongue is so sore and swollen still that I can just barely speak in a manner that anybody can understand me. When I do try to speak, I can just barely pronunciate the words, and I have trouble drooling when I try to talk. Is this normal? I've heard of people losing their voice but I haven't seen people discuss having difficulty with speech due to sores and/or swollen tongue and mucous from radiation.

The other sort of related thing I'm still experiencing is the mucous problem at night. I've read that most seem to have problems with lots of mucous. Mine has improved but I still have tremendous difficulty sleeping! I wake up every half hour to hour with a big puddle of mucous drool on my pillow!! I get up, spit out what I can, find a dry spot on my pillow and try to sleep again, but within an hour I'm back up with it again. Is this normal? Everybody else seems to discuss having the opposite problem - being too dry!! Granted it has gotten a bit better but I'm suprised to still be waking up so often with this problem at night. Here again I haven't seen anybody discuss problems with it at night so I'm wondering if any of you experienced this problem of drooling mucous in your sleep, waking you up frequently. Any input appreciated on either this or the speech issue....thanks!