Mark


First, belated congratulations on your success in swallowing thin liquids. Despite 32 sessions of VitalStim and following the NIH clinical trial protocols, no such luck for me. But you are one of the few posters who understands from experience the day to day hassles of being on a feeding tube. Two and a half years is amazing. It's been 21 months for me, and I have been able to ditch the feeding bags and go totally syringe/bolus.

But on to your mucous. As you imply with your question mark, mucositis is not the medical term for excess mucous and saliva. I thought that it was when I joined OCF and couldn't understand why posters advised me about treating ulcers when I was drowning in mucous and saliva. Very confusing and counter intuitive. Mucositis is instead ulcers in the mouth [quote][As a result of cell death in reaction to chemo- or radio-therapy, the mucosal lining of the mouth becomes thin, may slough off and then become red, inflamed and ulcerated. The ulcers may become covered by a yellowish white fibrin clot called a pseudomembrane. Peripheral erythema is usually present. Ulcers may range from 0.5 cm to greater than 4 cm. Oral mucositis can be severely painful][/quote]

Have you tried a "spit bucket"? Seriously, I just carried around at first a huge cylindrical igloo type, but graduated to an innocuous and very mundane super coffee travel mug. Very easy to spit out that nasty stuff and cap it too. I'd think twice about surgery because of potential complications.
I'm not sure what to make of your radiation remark as I have had 97 GY of radiation, well over the "maximum" and I still have nasty mucous and saliva issues.

Anybody who can deal with a feeding tube as long as you have, has to be able to deal with this.