I just finished my hyperbaric oxygen treatment to heal the tissues in my throat which was damaged my radiation. I have to say it helped a lot, now I am about 2.5 months after the ending of radiation (33 rounds, 6600 Gy total) and I can eat anything I want. Dringking orange juice won't bother me anymore. If the tissue in your throat won't heal for a while, you may consider ask your doctor for this treatment. Of course, there are some risks involved, I was told by my doctor, if there is any residual cancer in the body, the treatment will also help it progress rapidly.

WZ, What exactly is that treatment - I had never heard of that before. Did you say that it's to help heal your throat after the radiation rounds? If so, it sounds like a "miracle" considering you can eat anything you want and even orange juice isn't a problem! (orange juice and anything citrus has to be one of the worst enemies to a person who has undergone radiation treatments, as my husband certainly has found out. ow!!) Anyways...did you have difficulty swallowing/eating foods for awhile, and is that why your doctor recommended this procedure to you? Keep up the good work...this seems to have been quite a blessing for you.

Hi DonnaJean,

I did a search because`I knew I'd seen something about this before. I was told they'd use it for me if I ever had dental work done...to increase the blod flow to my mouth. But, after WZ posts (thanks WZ - I learn new stuff all the time) I did a little reading, and found it's has many more uses. Thanks again for posting.

This is one of Brian's earlier answers:

"Please read the section in our web site on hyperbaric oxygen treatments. You can find the main page and other references to it by using the search engine in the web site and enclosing the words you wish it to find together between quotation marks (" "). HBO treatments are for wound healing and not for cancer treatment."

Hope it helps.

Dinah

DonnaJean,

They put me in a chamber about 10' long then they
filled the chamber with pure oxygen to 2.4 ATA.
This treatment will greatly increase the oxygen supply to the wound and promote healing. Before the treatment, I have to take medicine to numb my throat before I eat. I also took OxyContine and Endocet to control the pain. Three weeks into the treatment, I can eat everything I want, yes, including orange juice, it was just amazing.

The reason I had this treatment was actually not for the healing of the throat tissue, I had mandibulotomy during the surgery and I had three infections/abscess in my chin already, the doctor was so concerned that the infection may get into the mandible causing osteomyelitis, so he ordered this treatment. It appears that the osteomyelitis has not occurred yet, but it did heal the throat tissue damaged by radiation.

Thanks Dinah and WZ for the info. I was getting all excited because although it's not a cancer treatment per se, I figured if it can help my husband drink some OJ and other citrus things (tomatoes, maybe?!) it might be worth asking the doc about. But he has not had any major dental work done, and although swallowing is still rough a lot of times (he also is on Oxycontin and Oxycodone, liquid Morphine and a cough syrup w/Hydrocodone)...he can for the most part eat a wider variety of foods nowadays. Oh but what he wouldn't do, just to be able to sip some juice again!! Also, curiously enough - even mustard burns like crazy. But it makes sense because mustard is a spice - and that's always hard on the palate after radiation treatments I hear. Anyways, glad things are going well for you! Keep up the good work, and keep us posted.