Sorry it's been a while, but finished treatments on May 25. 35 Radiation treatments. First week of recovering was tough. Still coughing up thick mucous stuff that drives me nuts! Throat pain is bad. Still 100 % tube fed. Man I want to eat some solid food! I went from 248 to 206 pounds. I have been working from home and have a great support system in place! I am happy to be done! I need this mucous stuff to go away...any suggestions let me know!

Congrats! It will get better. The first few weeks post recovery were very tough for my husband but he is now really recovering, although for him it has been a slow process.

Im so glad to see you have finished and are up to posting again. I was getting worried.

A waterpik with warm water can help when used on its lowest setting to get rid of the thick gunky mucous. That phase is short-lived, one day it will simply disappear. The dry mouth phase replaces the mucous phase. Its all part of the recovery process which unfortunately cant be rushed.

You can also try rinsing a few times per day with a mixture of warm water 1 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp salt. Be careful, the salt will likely burn you mouth. If you can keep it in your mixture that will help you heal and eliminate the gunky mucous. Swish it around for about 30 seconds then spit, repeat this 4x a day.

Some have found rinsing with seltzer water helps with teh gunky mucous too.

Watch your intake! Every single day you need to hit the bare minimums of 2500 calories and 48-64 oz of water, try to do even more like 3000 calories daily. You are probably thinking Im nuts. Nope, not at all Ive been there and I ended up in the hospital for malnutrition and dehydration due to not paying enough attention to my intake. I dont want to see anyone else suffer luke I did so please push yourself to do better with your intake. How do I know you have had trouble with it? You lost a considerable amount of weight which is a sure sign you didnt take in enough calories every single day. I lost weight like crazy too but I also lost considerable muscle along with it and Im so weak its not funny.

Hang in there, you are almost past the worst of everything and will begin to feel a little better soon.

Congratulations! In addition what Christine said, rinsing with non hot liquid tea may help reduce the thick mucus, drinking adequate fluids, taking Mucinex or Robotusm, using a stick sponge or gauze on fingertips to get the mucus around the gums, taking a steam shower, some use a neti pot, but I wasn't going to stick my face in anything, and the water, preferably distilled, needs to be changed, and pot cleaned daily, a humidifier which the same goes for cleaning, gentle patting in the middle back by someone, which I learned in the hospital from a nurse got some gunk out. I may have tried once, but some use steak tenderizer diluted with water to rinse with too.

The thick mucus is from the salivary glands, mainly parotid, which produces mostly think mucus, other two major salivary glands a mixture of thick and thin, but mostly thick, and radiation mainly destroys the thin saliva, not thick, so you're left with the thick saliva until the salivary gland recovers or others compensate for its loss.

Good to see you back. I started radiation this week.