Having pain on the floor inside my mouth and outside under my jaw on the side where the cancer was removed and during the second surgery my ENT had to reroute my salivary gland. Currently undergoing my last week of rads and I'm experiencing this pain along with referred pain in my ear. Sometimes unbearable! I'm not sure if it's just swollen or if I'm experiencing pain from atrophy? I am still able to talk but the last few weeks I lost my voice and haven't been able to talk normally due to the pain. Both the physical and referred pain does go away sometimes when I apply pressure on the outside of my jaw. Has anyone else experienced this?

Marie

Marie, the end of treatments and first 2 weeks after are the hardest part of the whole thing. Im sorry you are in pain. The pain gets harder to manage as the treatments go on. Most of us would use the fentanyl patch to help control the pain. Its easy to use and the patches come in 12.5mg - 100mg. At my highest I was on 150mg for about 10 days. This medication you need to be careful with. Slowly increase and decrease the dosages. If you are not using it I would think you would need at least 50mg. It takes about 24 hours before you will get the full benefit of a patch so if you have it on and you dont feel relief by the next day ask the doc to increase it. There is also other meds you can take for those times when you need something extra for breakthru pain.

I lost my voice for a few weeks as did many others on here. This will be a temporary thing for you. Keep pushing the nutrition and hydration and very soon you will be finished and on your way to a full recovery.

Stick with us and we will help you thru this.

Thanks Christine. For now I'm just going to stick with the percocet which is what I've been using to manage my pain in general. Considering the pain I spoke of comes and goes I know I can manage it this way. I just wasn't sure if this was normal or not.

There is no way most of us could have gone thru those brutal treatments with only percocet. Wow!!! you are one tough cookie! Hang in there and keep pushing yourself to get at least 2500 calories and 48 oz water every single day.

Good luck!

Hey there - atrophy is very possible, try massaging the area (gently - particularly if you're raw from rads - in fact don't rub it just press it gently). I will help promote blood flow to the area which may help get rid of the pain. Swelling also causes pain - which I imagine is also an issue. good luck.. You can get through his.