Need some reassurance please! John's last IMRT was July 8th, this year. For a while he was doing really well. Over the past 5 weeks, his mouth has gotten worse-really thick mucous- glued shut in the am- has to gargle, rinse, etc. all day, takes 2 bites of food and heads for the water pic, weight going down-not up. He is having ear aches and head aches[in the 13 yrs. we've been married, he has rarely had a headache.] He started on the Robitussin a few days ago to see if it would help with the "gunk", which he says feels like F26 [construction adheasive] in his mouth. Any other things to try? He's really feeling down about this. and I am really worried about the head and ear pain. Amy

Amy,

Ear pain and headaches can be signs of any number of things, so if they persist it's best to have his doctor investigate. However, one thing that has caused ear pain (and some related headaches) for me is ear wax. I've heard that hard wax can build up following radiation, and I've had repeated instances where it was enough to cause real pressure. It was embedded sufficiently deep in the ear canal that the people in the local ear clinic said it had to be professionally removed (usually with some sort of probe and the world's smallest vacuum cleaner).

I hope the reason for John's pain can be easily found and remedied.

Cathy

Amy, Well I'm sure you've heard what my ENT has repeatedly told me when I complain about gunky mucous, etc., which is that it takes 8 months to a year to heal and until then I'm likely to have all sorts of unpleasant symptoms.

Is John taking salagen or the other drug that's supposed to stimulate saliva? I've found since I started taking Salagen (and especially now that I'm on a little higher dose than the minimum) that I'm having more thick mucous again. I also have sort of a chronic "getting a cold" feeling. I sneeze a lot at the beginning of the day and have to blow my nose several times, and more often throughout the day, although I never get really stuffed up. I also seem to have slightly more mild sinus-type headaches. (But yet I still wake up with a painfully dry mouth in the morning!)

Anyway, I agree with Cathy that the headache thing is something that should definitely be checked and I hope it all turns out to be a bump in the road that gets better over time.

Nelie

When Barry suddenly started getting really bad mouth mucous and gunk (this just after the end of his treatment) after not having serious problems along that line, it turned out he had a pneumonia and a bacteremia (blood infection). As soon as he went onto the IV antibiotics, the excessive mucous started to go away and was gone by the end of the oral antibiotic course he took afterwards.

I showed Barry your post and he advised that John ask his doctor to do blood work which would indicate if he has some kind of latent infection going on -- not necessarily what Barry had, could be his sinuses or ears -- so this can get treated.

Barry has no mouth gunk now and hasn't for over a month, since the infections were completely cleared up (it took several weeks to be sure the "walking pneumonia" was gone) --

Gail

For the last several weeks of radiation and for about eight weeks post treatment I had similar complaints of thick junky mucus that was difficult to bring up. Someone here suggested club soda, was a life saver, works like little scrubbing bubbles. Swish and spit, as many times as necessary. The screw top bottles will stay fresh and carbonated about 18 hours. Good luck. Edd

Edd - Those scrubbing bubbles helped me too. They still do from time to time. That construction adhesive grade mucous is really nasty, but it does slowly improve. It took nearly a year for mine to settle down. Root beer is my favorite brew for treating it. Mine comes back on occasion, but the A&W rinses it away nicely. Good luck with it, Tom

Thanks all, we just got back in town from my duaghter's RN graduation. Will print off all of the above for John. Amy

Hi Amy,
While the suggestions above may alleviate the mucous/saliva problem, I would not ignore the ear pain and headaches. I would call the dr, make an appointment and ask about these if they persist to make certain everything is still ok especially if they last longer than two weeks. Remember early detection is the key. Here's hoping that it nothing but a another one of those annoying side effects that keep on giving.

Take care,
Eileen