finally joined after peeking in over last few months. oct 31st 08 i gave up smoking after 23 yrs , nov 30 a biopsy was taken and dec 12th given the news i had oral cancer and would need major surgery. surgery happened january 12th , thankfully without any complications . owing to severe under jaw odema swelling my radiation therapy was postponed 3 weeks and was discharged from ward after 31 days . i'm struggling with the thought of trying to swallow again and barely manage a few sips of coffee a week , even then i think i spit most of it back out as i have excess saliva now. also have the hacking up of mucusy blobs most days, sometimes 1 or 2 a day and sometimes very easy and other times eye wateringly hard to do

So glad you are here. You're in the right place for lots of support and practical help! It's been a while since my son was recovering from his radiation treatment, and he did have lots of saliva problems but it was manageable, though and got better slowly depending on how far he was from end of treatment. I'm sure you will hear from others with more direct and recent experience and suggestions. Until you do, have you tried doing a search in the little search box upper right of this page? Just type in "saliva" and it will take you to a thread with lots of helpful comments.

Hello Ross and welcome. It's a tough road you have started down and your body will go through many changes before it's done. Radiation will probably end up drying up that saliva and then your mouth will be dry all the time. Swinging from one extreme to the other is the name of this game. You may need to see a speech therapist at the end of tx to relearn how to swallow. I didn't even have surgery but still and even with the peg tube I lost 50 pounds (not sure what that is in grams) over the course of tx and recovery. Wish you luck and strength to fight this battle.

i have had sessions with speech therapist but they arent forcing me to do anything past what i'm comfortable with, thats why i figured getting on here i can find out others experiences. i'm just about back to pre surgery weight taking 9 bottles of multifibre fortisip per day and 90ml of calogen as a calorie booster. i can talk reasonably well all things considered but living alone and not many vistors dont need to much, when i do i get frothy saliva from it and often brings on the mucus hacking . my surgeon says what i have saliva wise is what i will be stuck with being 15 months down the track after radiation he doesnt expect any change to it now.

Just wanted to say hello. I'm from NZ too - had treatment in Auckland but no rads or chemo for my tongue cancer. My speech therapist tells me that some people find a sip of a fizzy drink helpful when their speech is hindered by saliva. Doesn't seem to work for me but I take water wherever I go because - even though I have too much saliva - the water thins it down.

its more of an issue if i'm in consult room or therapy and i have to talk more in 5 mins than i usually do in a day. lol

Hi Ross, welcome to OCF. Congrats on finishing the brutal treatments and being a survivor. There are many different after effects people can run into after finishing treatment. Ive heard of people on here who have experienced improvements around their 2 year point so dont give up just yet. There is alos some meds around that can help with producing salivia. Sorry I took one for less than a week as it had its own set of side effects (excessive sweating).

I also have the mucous blobs that you describe. I havent heard too much from others about that. Sometimes its daily but occassionally I can skip a day or 2 without having one of them caught in my throat. They can be awful to get out. I have found that when I have one stuck, I drink either very warm or ice cold drinks and that helps tremendously.

Always glad to see new members who are survivors. Glad you made yourself a part of OCF

thanks, yes my dr keeps reminding me at my 3mth check ups that some things take time . i look forward to the odema under my jaw finally vanishing, they nicked a nerve in surgery so have a crooked smile for now but once the odema has settled for good dr will look at corrective fix on that if it really bothers me. could just be coincedence but i was on antibiotics course for 2 weeks up to monday as i'd had a boil in my armpit that had to be lanced and havent had to much problem hacking them up since . anyway the threads are already proving a mine of information for me . ross