David II,
I was told it takes a year or so for the salivary glands to fully heal. It does seem that point&shoot IMRT is initially harder on them.

For me dry mouth is not an issue and it was never real severe. In most cases Tomo's fan-beam arc delivery will spare all the salivary glands (with proper planning of course). I had a paper on how they do this, but I can't find it, so as best I recall the trick is to keep 75% of any Salivary gland under 20gy.

My TSH has not significantly changed, but I do have some throat constriction (noticeable when I eat rice or peanut butter). Otherwise I don't seem to have any significant side-effects.

The tonsillectomy was the worse. They really took a lot of real-estate. Thankfully I was hospitalized.